What's In Your Head Determines What's In Your Wallet

Acquiring the Attitude of Abundance

Darren Hardy

Look Within or Go Without

In the book The Instant Millionaire by Mark Fisher, the old millionaire asks the boy who has sought his advice, “Why aren’t you rich already?” That’s a good question to ask yourself. We live in an era of unprecedented wealth and opportunity. More people have become wealthy in the last 20 years than any other time in human history—why haven’t you? Your answer to this question will reveal a lot about yourself. Your answers will expose your self-limiting beliefs, your doubts, your fears, your excuses, your rationalizations and maybe some justifications.

Reprogram Your Mental Hard Drive

One of the greatest limitations to achieving financial abundance is a deep-seated belief that somehow money is wrong and people who have a lot of it are inherently evil. This belief is invented fiction. It goes back to early childhood conditioning when a growing child is often told this because of other people’s envy or desire to rationalize away their own financial failures.

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The fact is money is good. It takes money to build hospitals, churches and shelters. Money is also needed to buy homes, cars, clothes, food, vacations and other glorious experiences in life. Life is limitless abundance. To acquire money is not to take it away from someone else. Money is granted to the creator, the one who has built something where nothing existed before. Money is the instrument of exchange for valued production. Money is earned only by the producer. The accumulation of wealth is accomplished only by consistently applied effort and discipline. Money has an energy of its own, and it is largely attracted to people who understand its virtues and respect its power. Money tends to flow toward those people who can use it in the most productive ways to produce valuable goods and services, and who can invest it to create employment and opportunities that benefit others. At the same time, money flows away from those who use it poorly, or who spend it in nonproductive ways.

To Have More, You Must Become More

You have heard the phrase, “water seeks its own level,” right? Fortunately, or unfortunately (depending on your level), the same is true about money. Money will meet you where you are. Stated another way, your net worth will equal your self-worth. These are not just clever quips, they are wise truths—and stark realities for some. We all have read the stories about someone who earns $30,000 a year and wins $5 million, $10 million or $20 million in the lottery, then within one to three years they have spent it all and are back to making $30,000 a year, living paycheck-to-paycheck. We’ve watched once-wealthy celebrities also play out that saga. Why does this happen? The money was far greater than their level of self-perceived value. The disproportionate money to self-esteem ratio made them uncomfortable. At an unconscious level they did whatever they could to try to rebalance the inequity—ultimately losing it all—thus returning to the comfort level of their self-worth. As Jim Rohn says, “If you win a million dollars, the first thing you should do is become a millionaire.” So learn the character, habits, disciplines and, most importantly, attitudes of a millionaire.

Is your attitude about money attracting it to you or pushing it away? If we build a negative relationship with the dollar bill, it’s reflected in our thoughts, feelings and actions. Worry is one of the most costly attitudes. Worry is a fear emotion. Fearful thoughts deplete your creative energies and inhibit your ability to make smart choices and take progressive action, which ends up pushing us farther away from prosperity.

Conversely, when we have an attitude of abundance we attract money toward us. This isn’t voodoo; it’s plain and simple. You see what you are looking for and get what you expect. When we are confident about money and grateful for what we have, it changes how we see things, how we talk and how we act. This mindset, outlook and behavior stimulate your inner creativity and attract other like-minded people and circumstances that come with money-making insights and opportunities. Positive, ambitious, abundance-minded people like to associate and do business with people of the same ilk. They avoid those with nervous or pessimistic attitudes about what’s possible.

Getting Money Flowing to You

What would make you happy and boost your sense of well-being? You might be surprised. You may realize you really don’t require any more money than you already have. Sometimes a simple change in attitude is all that’s needed to feel good about your life. People often think, “If only I could get a promotion or a new car, I’d be happy.”

Take inventory of the great wealth you already have. Ask yourself, “What do I feel grateful for in my life?” Take a couple of minutes right now to write it down. Show that list to most people around the world and they will indeed call you wealthy. Feel thankful for all you have, and you will feel instantly wealthy. Once you feel wealthy you will continue to think wealthy and act wealthy, and it will charge the magnet that will attract more wealth to you.

People become wealthy because they decide to become wealthy. Those who believe they can become wealthy and are worthy of great financial wealth are the ones who will be. Because they believe this completely, they act accordingly. They consistently take the necessary actions that turn their beliefs into realities. Decide now that you are worthy of great wealth, and it will be your first step toward great prosperity.

America is the “land of milk and honey.” Opportunity is everywhere. No matter where you look, you will find someone pursuing their dream and being rewarded with great abundance. For centuries, people have sacrificed life and limb just to get here. You are here. People with far more difficulties and much greater obstacles and limitations have gone on to become incredibly wealthy—why not you? People who are less intelligent, poorer, who had more difficult childhoods, fewer privileges and no support have gone on to make great fortunes. So can you. If you think you can, you will. Your attitude will determine your destiny.

Direct Selling Offers Flexibility and Financial Freedom

If you want to spread your entrepreneurial wings but have little or no business experience, don’t have a product or service to offer or are simply looking for a proven system for success, direct selling might be the ideal opportunity.

For more than 100 years, direct selling companies have offered independent representatives the ability to purchase products at wholesale prices and earn a profit by selling them at retail prices. Most direct selling companies also allow representatives to earn commissions for introducing new sales reps to the business. This business model relies on independent contractors, rather than traditional advertising, to spread the word about a company’s products or services. The word-of-mouth marketing approach works for several reasons: Consumers appreciate the personal service, the convenience of shopping from home, and the comfort of buying from those they know and trust.

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Jim Cramer, host of CNBC’s Mad Money, is bullish on direct selling, especially during a slowing economy. “Direct selling is a great model…with high gross margins, low capital intensity, lots of free cash flow,” he said on a recent show. “It’s a fragmented industry with gigantic room for growth. The top 15 players only account for about half the market.”

Amy M. Robinson, Direct Selling Association Vice President of Communications and Media Relations, points out that, while many people seek additional income during lean economic times, “in all honesty, direct selling is hot because it’s a fun, convenient way to shop that people enjoy. So, poor economic times or not, people fi nd direct selling to be appealing. Great products, personal service and income potential are elements of direct selling that make it a strong economic contender at all times.”

“People motivated to get started in direct selling typically share certain attributes,” she says. “Most seek supplemental income, either short-term or long term. The social aspect also is appealing for those who love to meet new people and many enjoy buying products and services they already use—at a discount.”

With a direct selling business opportunity you can: Join an industry where business is booming and there’s always room at the top. Direct selling, sometimes referred to as network marketing, is a $32 billion industry in the United States and a $110 billion industry worldwide. The millions of individuals building direct selling businesses determine for themselves when they want to move up the career ladder and exactly how high they want to climb.

Tap into a proven system for success. Avoid wasting time or money by learning from others’ experiences and wisdom. Direct selling companies often provide high-quality, high-impact marketing tools, including personal Web sites, brochures, catalogs, DVDs and CDs to help direct sellers present a professional image—at a fraction of what it would cost to produce the same tools on their own. Additionally, training in best practices is frequently offered online and via conference calls as well as at local and national conferences.

Start a business for $500 or less. Direct selling companies offer big opportunity with minimal startup costs. For a small sign-up fee, new reps receive access to training and marketing materials, discounts on products and sample products to show and sell. You can set up office at your kitchen table with phone and laptop. Low overhead combined with minimal(if any) inventory expenses make direct selling businesses affordable. And because many companies handle online orders and deliver directly to customers, independent representatives can focus their time on connecting with potential clients and team members.

Experience flexibility and time freedom. The flexibility to work around full-time jobs or to create an income stream that fi ts into their families' schedules is a huge perk. Because
each representative is an independent contractor, not an employee, there is no set schedule or required number of hours. On average, part-time direct sellers devote three to 10 hours per week to their businesses. Those who pursue the business full time invest 15 to 35 hours per week. In either case, representatives can set their own schedules and build their businesses during off hours and lunch breaks or on weekends.

Earn what you’re worth. When you’re the boss, you don’t have to ask for a raise—you simply go out and earn one. A results-driven industry, direct selling levels the playing field by offering the same opportunity to everyone regardless of age, ethnicity, gender or socioeconomic background. Equal opportunity, a clearly defined career path and no earning restrictions mean there are no limits on what successful direct sellers can earn. While some in the industry are earning millions, it’s more common for direct sellers to use their businesses to earn extra cash per month to pay for dinners
out, private school, college expenses, cars and family vacations.

Maximize your earnings with residual(or passive) income. By building a team of people who love the products and are excited about telling others about the opportunity, direct sellers can leverage their time and maximize their income. Capitalizing on a team’s efforts means a business owner can devote 10 hours a week to their business, but with 10 other people also devoting 10 hours to their businesses, the team leader earns a commission from the collective sales and team-building results of 110 hours’ effort. It also means a team builder’s business has the potential to grow, even while he or she is on vacation.

“I like the honesty about direct selling,” says economist Paul Zane Pilzer, author of The Next Millionaires, “because it openly tells people the way to get rich is residual income: Get paid tomorrow for something you did yesterday—and let it accumulate.”

Reap the rewards of helping others succeed. Building a team definitely makes financial sense, but it also offers significant intangible rewards. Though representatives run their businesses independently, they often develop a family-like connection with their team members and others in the business. The friendships formed and the experiences of helping others improve their personal and financial lives are often as meaningful to direct sellers as the money they earn.

Get the recognition—and prizes—you deserve. In the corporate world, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, much less free vacations, luxury cars or fine jewelry. Direct selling companies know most people work more diligently and with more enthusiasm for a reward. First-class incentive trips to exotic locations, free cars or car allowances, fine jewelry and cash bonuses are offered by many companies to those who excel. And the opportunity to earn such rewards is open to everyone.

Become a better you. Direct sellers are faced with numerous comfort-zone challenges, and by overcoming those challenges they grow personally and professionally. The encouragement and training these independent business owners receive from their companies’ leaders as well as others in the fi eld spur them to step outside their comfort zones to achieve success.

Brian Tracy: Million Dollar Habits

Brian Tracy explains the proven methods to business and personal success.

Brian Tracy

Psychologist Abraham Maslow once wrote, “The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.” The average person settles for far less than he or she is truly capable of achieving. The truth is we’re all extraordinary. You came into this world with more talents and abilities than you could ever use. You could not exhaust your full potential if you lived 100 lifetimes.

Your brain has 20 billion cells, each of which is connected to as many as 20 thousand other cells. The possible combinations and permutations of ideas, thoughts and insights that you can generate are equivalent to the number one followed by eight pages of zeros. According to brain expert Tony Buzan, this number is greater than all the molecules in the known universe.

In other words, whatever you have accomplished in life to this date is only a small fraction of what you are truly capable of achieving. The challenge is that you come into the world with no instruction manual. As a result, you have to figure it all out for yourself. Most people never do. They go through life doing the very best they can, but they never come within shouting distance of doing, having and being all that is possible for them.

The Key to Success
I started off in life with few advantages. My father was not always employed and my family never seemed to have any money. I began working and paying for my own clothes and expenses when I was 10 years old, doing odd jobs around the neighborhood. When I was old enough, I got a job washing dishes in the back of a small hotel. My biggest promotion at that time was up to washing pots and pans.

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I left high school without graduating and worked at laboring jobs for several years. I worked in sawmills stacking lumber, and in the woods slashing brush with a chain saw. I dug ditches and wells. I worked in factories and on construction sites. For a time, I was a galley boy on a Norwegian freighter in the North Atlantic. I earned my living by the sweat of my brow.

When I could no longer find a laboring job, I found work making straight-commission sales, cold calling from door to door and office to office. For a long time, I was one sale away from homelessness. It was not a great way to live.

Then one day I began asking a question: “Why is it that some people are more successful than others?” Or more specifically, “Why is it that some salespeople are more successful than others?”

With that one question, I did something that changed my life and began the formation of a habit that had a profound effect on my future. I asked the most successful salesman in my company what he was doing differently from me. And he told me. And I did what he told me to do. And my sales went up.

In the Bible it says, “Ask and ye shall receive.” I soon developed the habit of asking everyone, and in every way possible, for the answers that I needed to move ahead more rapidly. I began to read books on selling, and put into action what I had learned. I listened to audio programs while I walked and, eventually, as I drove around. I attended every sales seminar I could find. I continually asked other successful salespeople for advice. And I developed the habit of immediately taking action on any advice or good idea that I received or learned.

Not surprisingly, my sales went up and up, and eventually I surpassed everyone in my company. Soon they made me a sales manager and asked me to teach other people what I was doing that enabled me to be so successful.

Before long, I was recruiting people with newspaper ads, teaching them the sales methods and techniques that I had learned, and sending them out to call on prospects and customers. In no time at all, they were making sales and moving upward and onward in their own lives. Many of those early salespeople are millionaires today.

The Law of Cause and Effect
What I learned from this experience was the great Law of Cause and Effect. This is the foundation principle of Western philosophy and of modern thought. It says that for every cause, there is an effect.

Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by accident. This law says that, even if you do not know the reason why something happens,there is still a reason that explains it. Here is one of the most important of all success principles: “If you do what other successful people do, you will eventually get the same results that they do. And if you don’t, you won’t.”

Nature is neutral. Nature does not favor one person over another. The Bible says, “God made the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” When you do the things that other successful people do, over and over again, you will eventually get the same results that they do. It is not a matter of luck, or chance, or accident. It is a matter of law.

This was an extraordinary idea for me. Even today, I am awed by the immensity and power of this simple principle. If you want to be happy, healthy, prosperous,popular, positive and confident, just find outhow other people who are enjoying these benefits got that way, and do the same things they do. Think the same thoughts. Feel the same feelings. Take the same actions. And, as sure as two plus two makes four, you will eventually get the same results as others do.

Legends: Brian Tracy

Liz Davis

“You can’t hit a target you can’t see,” Brian Tracy is fond of saying. What he means is that if you don’t have a crystalclear goal, you simply can’t gauge your progress toward it. This is just one example of Tracy’s trademark style—he deals in deceptively simple, sensible statements that hold a world of wisdom.

Tracy has no time for excuses and no patience for whiners. For any reason a person who imagines that he or she can’t succeed—“It’s too late for me,” “I’m too old,” “I don’t have the necessary education and experience,” “I don’t have any money to get started”—Tracy has an answer: “Don’t give me any of that.” If there’s one thing he knows for sure, it’s that your starting point doesn’t matter. It’s all about the goal you’ve set your sights on, and what you’re honestly prepared to do to get there.

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His own life is a testament to his no-frills, no-excuses, no-nonsense philosophy of success. From a trouble-making kid from a poor family to a wandering, struggling laborer, he made a dramatic shift in beliefs and attitude that propelled him to rise to a top sales position and beyond.

After mastering sales, he went on to successful careers in a variety of fields and industries, eventually attaining the rank of chief operating officer of a $265 million development company. Over the last 30 years, he’s worked to distill his vast life experience into a foolproof system for success. His goal today, as head of Brian Tracy International and Brian Tracy University, is to pass on to others everything he has learned from a lifetime of study, trial, error, passion and old-fashioned hard work.

Fascinated by Success

Tracy was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1944, one of four brothers in a poor family. His father didn’t always have work, and he never had work that paid well. Brian and his brothers got their clothing from charities, and while his parents were upstanding people with good values, they worried to no end about money. From the time he could remember, young Brian was deeply curious about why other families were enjoying a higher quality of life without being plagued by money worries.

In the first chapter of his book Maximum Achievement, Tracy writes about how his parents always seemed to be telling themselves the same thing, over and over again, like a mantra: “We can’t afford it, we can’t afford it, we can’t afford it.” He frequently reminds his audiences that people become what they think about most of the time. Studies of self-made millionaires have revealed they think about financial independence more than anything else. Like many people who lived through the Depression, Tracy’s parents thought about the opposite—poverty—most of the time.

Tracy didn’t put all of this together overnight, though. Before he could become an expert on success, he had to experience plenty of his own failure and dejection in childhood, adolescence and into adulthood. By his own description, he was “a behavior problem” as a kid, earning countless detentions at school and even getting suspended and expelled multiple times.

Eventually he flunked out of high school and started working as a dishwasher. This began a pattern of drifting from one low-paying job to another, barely making ends meet, and sometimes not at all. In the back of Tracy’s mind, he constantly puzzled over the question he had asked himself since childhood: Why do some people fail while others succeed?

Embracing Accountability

After years of wandering, vaguely assuming his life was the result of external forces over which he had no influence, Tracy woke up. He realized that if his life was ever to be any different, he was the only one who could do anything about it. If he wanted answers, he would have to actively seek them out. “The turning point for me came when I was working as a construction laborer, and it was realizing that I was responsible for my own life,” he says.

Shortly after that, Tracy got his first job in sales, and after a rough start, he began to apply his curiosity about success and failure to his floundering selling strategies. He read everything he could about sales, and he quizzed successful salespeople about what they were doing so he could emulate their practices. He set the goal of becoming a better salesman and then pursued it wholeheartedly by seeking out knowledge and trying out different approaches. He quickly climbed the ranks to become the No. 1 sales manager at his company.

In the following years, Tracy capitalized on multiple business opportunities, taking on more responsibility and setting increasingly loftier goals for himself. He accepted challenges in sales, management, real estate development, business theory and marketing. In every instance, his innate curiosity served him well as he read prodigiously and became an expert on the subjects and industries he studied.

If you suggest this type of dedicated learning to the average person, chances are, the reply will be something like, “But I don’t have time for that.” As usual, Tracy has a rebuttal: “Never let your car be moving without you learning something.” He’s referring to the fact that most everyone drives and every book or seminar imaginable is available on audio. “Read, listen, continuously learn and grow. I read for three hours a day for 50 years, somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 books. You can learn anything if you really want to.”

A Student of Achievement

Tracy’s voracious reading wasn’t limited to his professional interests. He read about world history, economics, psychology, personality, marriage and parenting so he could have a better understanding of the world and his place in it. He also read the best writings on success: “Starting when I was 23 or 24, I read all the classics, Napoleon Hill, Claude Bristol, Orison Swett Marden. I laid a foundation for myself in success literature.” Over the last three decades, Tracy has earned a place among the aforementioned greats. In 1981, he decided to start compiling everything he had learned into a comprehensive system for achieving success and happiness. “I went to some seminars that were really quite poor, full of fluff,” he says. “I thought, ‘I can do better than this.’ ”

The first program he offered was entitled The Inner Game of Success, a two-day seminar that went through various incarnations as Tracy developed his message. For a time, it was called the Phoenix Seminar, which later became an audio best-seller entitled The Psychology of Achievement.

“I was on fire with the ideas in the seminar. I had an intense desire to share them with others,” Tracy writes. “I knew these ideas worked, and I was convinced that anyone who would apply even a small part of this system could bring about rapid, positive changes in his or her life.”

Since 1981, he has authored or co-authored more than 45 books, including Goals!, Maximum Achievement, Eat That Frog, Time Power, Reinvention and The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success. He has also produced training kits, online courses, video seminars and audio lessons on countless topics, from sales and entrepreneurship to strategies for a happy, lasting marriage. In his speaking career, he has addressed more than 4 million people in audiences worldwide.

The Importance of Clarity

In his books and presentations, Tracy often emphasizes that clarity is vital to success. You must be crystal-clear about your goals in order to move toward them. But you must also cultivate clear self-perception and level-headedness so your emotions don’t cloud your judgment. “Problems come from rash or bad thinking,” Tracy says. “Negative emotions cause your brain to shut down and you make bad decisions. But if you canthink clearly and act well, you can be effective in sales or anything else.”

Tracy advocates a better way of responding to negativity of any type, whether it’s doubt, disappointment, frustration or anger. “When you get upset, that’s when you must accept responsibility. The starting point for controlling your life is controlling your emotions. Many people think that emotions are uncontrollable. The way we explain things to ourselves determines the emotional component. So you deliberately decide to interpret things to yourself in a positive way.”

Tracy gives an example of this strategy: “Think about being stuck in traffic. One person becomes upset and agitated, while another person is totally calm and inclined to use the extra time to relax or listen to something educational. It’s the exact same situation. But it’s the way you think about being stuck in traffic that determines your experience.”

Much of Tracy’s message is designed to help people lay a foundation for thinking clearly, rationally and positively about their goals. But that’s only the beginning, he says. “When you think positively and constructively, you activate your creative mind. That’s true. But work is the vital part of the equation that so often gets left out when we’re talking about goals and positive thinking. Sometimes when you discover a concept like goal-setting, you can get really carried away with it. You can set goals and be really clear about them, and you can focus on them all the time, but if you don’t add the hard work, nothing at all will happen. Period.”

Brilliant on the BASICS

Brian Tracy

Selling is an art as well as a science. The effective sales process has several moving parts. Your ability to identify and then master each of the key result areas of selling is essential for you to earn the maximum income possible.

When Vince Lombardi took over the Green Bay Packers some years ago, he was asked what he was going to change. The players? The plays? The training process? How was he going to turn this team around after a string of failures and bad years in football?

Lombardi reportedly replied, “I am not going to change anything. We will use the same players, the same plays and the same training system. But we will concentrate on becoming brilliant on the basics.Before I am finished, we will be the best team in the National Football League in kicking, passing, blocking, running and catching. We will run our plays with such precision that the other side will know what we are going to do, but will be unable to stop us. We will be brilliant on the basics.”

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This principle applies to you as well. Your job is to become brilliant on the basics of selling. This begins by identifying the essential parts of the professional selling process and developing a plan to upgrade your skills in each area.

Fortunately, all sales skills are learnable. It doesn’t matter how well you’ve performed in different areas in the past. You can learn any sales skill you need to achieve any sales goal you set for yourself.

Everyone in the top 10 percent of their fields started in the bottom 10 percent. The top people in your industry were at one time not even in your industry and didn’t know it existed. But once they began, they committed themselves to becoming excellent in each of the key result areas.

Here is an important discovery. Your weakest key skill sets the height of your income. Just as a chain breaks at the weakest link, the skill at which you perform the worst determines how many sales and how much money you earn. By improving a single skill, the one skill that can help you the most, you can increase your sales and your income faster than in any other way.

Here is the key question: What one skill, if you were absolutely excellent at it, would best help you double your sales and your income?

When you ask yourself this question, the answer will usually jump into your mind. If you aren’t sure of the answer, it’s essential you find out, and find out quickly. Ask your manager. Ask your best customers. Ask your colleagues. You must know your weakest skill if you’re going to improve in that area and unlock your full potential for higher income.

Give yourself a grade of 1 to 10 in each of the key result areas of selling. A 1 means you need to improve and a 10 means you are highly skilled in that area. If you’re not sure about the accuracy of your answers, review your personal scores with your sales manager or someone else who knows the truth about your sales ability. The starting point of personal improvement is to be absolutely honest with yourself and others about the areas in which improvement can have the greatest impact on sales.

The first key result area of selling is prospecting. This is your ability to get face-to-face or ear-to-ear with qualified prospects who can and will buy your product or service within a reasonable amount of time.

This doesn’t mean that you talk to lots of interesting people who may or may not buy your product sometime in the future. Prospecting requires that you spend more and more time with people who can buy and pay for what you’re selling in the short term.

A score of 10 means that you are fully occupied, every hour of every day, and you have so many prospects that you can’t take on any more. You probably have someone who schedules appointments and keeps a backlog of people who are eager to talk to you and to buy from you. If this is your situation today, give yourself a 10.

A score of 1 means you’re a lonely person. You sit around the office like the Maytag repairman. You don’t phone anyone and no one calls you. You probably drink a lot of coffee, read the newspaper and play on the Internet.

It’s easy to give yourself a grade on the subject of prospecting. Just calculate what percentage of your time is spent each day with prearranged prospects. If it is 50 percent, give yourself a 5. If it is 70 percent, give yourself a 7.

The second key result area of selling is establishing rapport, trust and credibility. People will not buy from you until they like you, trust you and are convinced that you are their friend and acting in their best interests.

A score of 10 in this area means that you are a positive, cheerful, high-energy individual with a warm, empathetic personality, and you get along wonderfully with almost everyone you meet. A score of 1 means that, although you may get to talk to people once, they never want to talk to you again.

The third key result area of selling is identifying needs accurately. The biggest mistake you can make with a new prospect is to assume you already know what he or she needs, wants and is willing to pay for. Each prospect is unique. He or she has special wants, needs, hopes and fears. In the initial stage of your conversation, your single focus is to ask questions and listen carefully to ascertain whether a genuine need exists for what you sell.

A score of 10 in identifying needs means you have a careful series of questions, from the general to the particular, which you go through one by one to clearly ascertain that the prospect needs the product or service you’re selling. At the end of your questioning process, it’s abundantly clear to both the prospect and you that the prospect can use, benefit and pay for what you’re selling.

If you scored a 1 in identifying needs, this means your approach to each prospect is random. You ask whatever questions pop into your mind and say whatever falls out of your mouth. For you, every sales call is a new adventure. You have no idea what’s going to happen or how it’s going to turn out.

The mark of the professional is preparation. He or she has thought through and prepared every part of the sales conversation and leaves nothing to chance.

Give yourself a grade on the three key result areas of selling explained above and think about how you could become better in each one.