I just got my monthly newsletter from Dustin Mathews with The Internet Movement and it had some great tips from their work with Rich Schefren.

Rich is known as the “Guru’s Guru” as he teaches and coaches the best online marketers how to do their business better, more enjoyably and more profitably.  In fact, Rich has a stable of clients who pull in more than $350 Million per year using his strategies.

The lesson’s that Dustin pointed out were short and simple, but really help you stay focused on some critical points.  That’s why I thought I’d share them with you here.

Rich Lesson #1: Build Customer Lists

Opt-ins are good but buyers are better. Move focus away from building free lists and start building customer lists.

Get current non-buyers to spend something with you with front end offers, such as free plus shipping and price points under $100. Get them to show that they are willing to invest in themselves and in your products.

An added advantage of focusing on getting buyers is you will get more data. Which you can do things such as phone follow-up and direct mail, separating you from online only competitors.

Rich Lesson #2: Consider Descension Funnels

One of Rich’s funnels, is an automated webinar so as Business Growth System for $2995.

Is this some ninja marketing mind trick?

Pretty audacious price point considering that most of the folks entering the funnel are just beginning a relationship with him. Almost like decoy pricing.

In addition, this positions you differently in the marketplace as most people only build a ascension funnels.

Rich Lesson #3: Follow Up…..MORE

I know. Not the killer ninja strategy you were looking for. Well check this out…

Rich shared a recent webinar Promo produced $14,000 the night of the webinar.

However, that number skyrocketed to $95,000 when multiple replays and follow-up was implemented.

Trends are showing that now, more than 50% of the sales take place after the online event of course.

However this won’t apply if you don’t implement replace and proper follow-up.

Rich Bonus Lesson: Invest…..Less?

Rich recommended the following book, Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works.

Essentially, most people’s plan a will never work.

If this is the case, your thought process going in should be…

“What’s the least amount of time I can invest with plan A… So I can get to plan B., C., X.?”

So there you go.  Those are the lessons that were passed on by Dustin in The Movement newsletter.  Visit his site from the link above and subscribe to it if you like the info.  I’ve been impressed by what he shares, and there’s a ton more great information in every single issue.

A few of my own notes on these points:

1. I love the idea of focusing on customer lists.  I’ve always believed that a good business is built on long term relationships with customers.  Those relationships rely on trust and confidence which starts with their first purchase.  Then it’s up to you to deliver world-class service and make them feel like a million bucks.  Plus, it’s always easier to share new ideas with happy current clients than try to convince new clients to make their first investment with you.

2. The idea of “descension” funnels is interesting because it allows you to showcase the higher end value of your product or service.

I always like to “frame” the value of our SMARTblog Social Media Marketing Machine with potential clients before I quote our price because I want them to understand the real-world value that we deliver as opposed to pegging the value to the price that I allow them to invest in it for.

If you can show tons of value to a prospective client and then offer to implement your service at a fraction of that amount of investment, it goes a long ways toward developing trust and confidence in you and your business.

Last point on this, if someone isn’t ready to invest in your total service, you can “descend” them to a lower priced product or service to get them started.  This lower price point might fit better in their budget or comfort level and still give you the opportunity to start a customer relationship earlier.  Make it easier for them to upgrade down the road.

3.  As they say, the fortune is in the follow up.  It’s really cool that there are so many technology tools that you can use to make this easier on yourself.

A few ideas off the top of my head are autoresponder drip follow up systems that you can easily implement through companies like MailChimp and Aweber.

You can also add them to a monthly newsletter mailing program similar to the one I got from Dustin.  This one is going into implementation in my business right away.

There are a lot more options to automate your follow up and consistently stay in front of your most important referral partners, customers and other contacts.  Unfortunately too many to detail out in this post.

Let me know if you have any suggestions that you’d like to share in the comments box.

And don’t forget to like, share, comment and tweet this out below!

Success Through Positive Affirmations

The longest distance between where you are now and the success you want in life is six inches.  Six inches is all you have to conquer in order to have every dream, goal and aspiration that you can imagine in your mind.   Half the distance of that little wooden ruler that you used all the way through grade school, while you weren’t slapping your friends on the hand with it, is the total distance that must be covered on your journey to success and the fortunes of your dreams.

Isn’t it interesting that people travel thousands of miles.  They literally travel all around the world in search of the “one thing” that will lead them to their own highest achievement. Some people risk life and limb to climb the highest mountains in the world to prove to themselves that they can do it.  Some prefer meditation with religious and spiritual thought leaders in the Far East to bring them enlightenment.  Some people just turn away in frustration and lose themselves in the day to day struggle and never become what they were uniquely created to be.

Well, the interesting news of the day is that the six inches that is so important to yours, mine, and everyone’s success is the six inches resting between their ears.  That bundle of gray matter laced with neurons and dendrites and pyramidal cells and synapses is literally the pathway to success.  It’s all tied up in the dopamine and norepinephrine and acetylcholine and endorphins which are continuously batting around and bouncing into each other that determine how high you go and how fast you get there.

How Can I Gain Success Using Positive Self Talk?

So how can you navigate that six inch trek which 95% of all people fail to tame and settle for mediocrity in their lives?  Well it all comes down to brain re-training.  You have the capacity to teach your brain to believe anything you want it to believe.  You can choose to make your brain lead you to your own personal success like an electromagnet can lift tons of metal once the electricity is turned on.  It’s all about what you feed your mind and how you condition is to feed information back to you in your life.

Henry Ford made the point this way:

“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”

So what are a few steps that you can take to get your brain on board with where you want to be?

1.  Determine a very clear picture of the goals that you want to achieve.  You must be specific.  This is one of the most critical elements of getting to what you want.  Studies have shown that the average person puts more time and attention into planning their annual vacation than they put into a concrete plan for the results of their one opportunity at creating a fantastic life.

2.  Write personal affirmations that state the achievement of these goals in the present tense.  In other words, if you want to earn $100,000 per year and you are not there yet, you would not say “I want to earn $100,000 per year.”  You would say “I’m so thankful that I’m earning $100,000 per year and am able to have the time freedom and stress-free life that comes with this income level.”  It’s also important to write affirmations for the different areas of your life.  It’s not all about money, but let’s face it, I’ve had it both ways and it’s easier having money than not.

3. Dedicate yourself to reciting these affirmations on a daily basis every morning and every night.  You may think it gets repetitive and boring, but your brain doesn’t know the difference.  The reason most people fail is that they let outside influences program their brain for failure.  Most of the outside information that you are fed on a daily basis is negative in nature and shows you why other people succeed and why you can’t.  You must overpower those voices that are speaking directly to your one great brain with the positive statements of achievement that will dictate your life’s success.

I was reading the “What I’ve Learned” section of my Esquire magazine the other day and enjoying what Larry King had to say.  His answers were based on what he’d learned over his career interviewing the most interesting and successful people in the world on his show, Larry King Live.

There is one item that stuck out to me and is so simple to implement that it is most often overlooked.  This single thing is quite likely responsible for more failures in sales and general business than any other thing in history.  The first few words that were given to Larry were “I never learned…..”.  Larry King finished that sentence by saying “I never learned anything while I was talking.”

Wow.  Simple and profound.  How often have we seen a glimmer of interest in our prospect or customer and proceeded to launch right in to an in depth explanation of the details?

We’ve all heard it before.  “God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason.”  Listen twice as much and talk half a much.  If I think back to my own sales experience, I laugh.  There are so many times that I know I talked my customer right out of the sale.  I gave them too many things to think about.  I brought up objections for them that they may never had brought up on their own.  I learned over time to clarify through asking questions and listening closely for clues as to whether they were ready to buy.

As I’ve spent countless hours in sales presentations training other sales professionals on the art of closing the sale, I’ve noticed this tendency to be the single most important and glaring deficiency of all.  It becomes almost painful watching a presentation go awry due to an overzealous presenter who wants to show all of the whosits and whatsits of whatever it is that they are selling.  When we leave the presentation and go over the details, I constantly reiterate the same thing.

Here’s the answer to the $64,000 question that I posed in the title of this article:

If the customer shows interest in your product or service, ask them what they like best about it and sit and listen to them.  Let them talk themselves into the sale.  Most motivated buyers of a product or service wouldn’t be out looking for it in the marketplace if they didn’t have an intention to buy.  If you have a quality product or service that matches what they are looking for, they’ll likely buy from you…..unless they feel like they’re getting “sold”.   You avoid them feeling that way and achieve the same end result by finding out their interest and then letting them expand on those interests until they have obviously convinced themselves that they should buy and buy right now!

Real Estate sales and mortgage loan origination is a unique business which requires trust and confidence by the potential client early on in the relationship.  In fact, the first two minutes of the initial meeting are critical to establishing the tone of the entire mortgage transaction and future client relationship. These same principles apply to Real Estate customers as well.  I’ve put together five tips to help you manage that initial introduction successfully and turn your customers into commission producing raving fans.

Tip One –  Be Yourself.

The key to a positive first impression is the feeling of trust between you and your potential customer.  Too many times we try to make our professional persona something different than our true self.  This can be dangerous when dealing with clients.  If  the customer feels that we are hiding something or being “fake” they may, even subconsciously doubt our trustworthiness.

Interestingly, we are trained from childhood on in ways that help us instantaneously develop trust with people we come into contact with or to avoid interaction with them.  In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking , he illustrates the point well using the term “thin slicing”.  Gladwell explains that we instantly judge new people and situations “because we have to, and we come to rely on that ability because there are lots of hidden fists out there, lots of situations where careful attention to the details of a very thin slice, even for no more than a second or two, can tell us an awful lot.”

Here’s a question.  Have you ever been in a situation where the hair stood up on the back of your neck? When that happened were you in an uncomfortable or nervous state?

That reaction is caused by the sympathetic nervous system and is part of every person’s natural “fight or flight” response.  It is an example of your bodies’ unconscious response to the feeling of distress.  The snap judgments that you make about a new person or situation is automatically interpreted by your brain and sends messages throughout your body in order to protect you from your environment.  Clearly this is a response that we do not want to trigger in our prospective customer within that crucial two minute introduction.

By being comfortable with yourself and willing to expose your true self to your prospects, they will be more at ease and feel like they can trust you right away.  In fact, in the best of cases, your customer will feel privileged to have made a new friend and will want to tell others about you.

One of the most consistent pieces of feedback that I have received from my clients over the last 15 years of successful referral based marketing in the mortgage industry has been “Mikel, I don’t know why but I just feel like I can trust you.  I’m going to go ahead and do what you suggest.”  My response, developed over the initial years as I started to see this pattern became; “Well thank you for that compliment.  I have to tell you that your trust is well placed.  I really do care about getting you the best deal for your situation and I’d do the same for anyone who you might refer to me in the future.”

Feel free to use that script.  It works.

This is just the first of five tips that I’ll be posting.

The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere.  ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

By the way, you can subscribe to all 5 tips delivered right to your email including step-by-step worksheets that are guaranteed to boost your sales pipeline immediately at http://www.ultimatehomejournal.com .

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