Business and Money Tips

Limitless Selling seminar in April 2014 We all know that questions are among the best tools in your sales presentation. This is because when you ask, they answer, and people will always believe more in what they themselves say than what you say. The professional salesperson knows that to keep the prospect's attention, you must ask more than you tell. Not just any questions, but skillful questioning that draws prospects out and leads them to a buying decision. But here's where the normal salesperson miss out: it's not just about asking questions. There are lots of salespeople out there who have learnt the techniques of asking questions, but they come off as 'canned' and not really sincere because they're not interested in the reply. You ask a question to know a person better because you're really interested, not just to find a hole in their defenses to ram your product through. You ask because so that you can serve them. In short, you ask because you'

Successful salespeople use a very effective sales tactic that win business over easily. This tactic is actually a process that sells without selling.  It is said that a good salesperson never sells anything, he simply creates the conditions for buyers to buy by themselves.  This is because selling is defined as professionally helping other people to buy.  The oldest and most effective tactic is Asking Questions.  You see, when you ask questions you are not selling.  You're helping the buyer to solve problems . Asking questions helps you to find out what are the real needs of your customer to determine how much they are willing to pay for a solution. But you cannot just ask a few questions and expect a sale. You need to ask the RIGHT Questions in the RIGHT ORDER .  Other than that, you also need to use questions to overcome sales objections.  It is said that the real job of a salesperson is in overcoming sales objections.  For if he cannot overcome sales objections

Everything in business starts and ends with sales, so all salespeople must be selling or they are simply redundant.  I f you don't make a difference to your customer, you are no different from other salespeople in the market, and customers will not choose you.   Making a Difference (MD, not MAD) is  not about offering the lowest price at the highest quality and the fastest delivery .  Nor is the MD Salesperson providing the best entertainment, for you are not an entertainer.  It is also not about you providing the most service, especially services that are way beyond the core of what you're doing.  This is because a salesperson is NOT a Service Provider, but a Service Provider that Sells.     There are 7 ways that you can make a difference to your customers: Adding Value to Customers Even When They Don't Buy .   Giving Referrals to your Customers Help the Customer to Save Money, Time and Energy  Make the Customer and his Team Happy, Free of Worry and Delusi

Every salesperson (including those not selling but selling ideas like those in management) wants to know the fastest and easiest way to make the sale. One day I asked an audience of insurance salespeople, "How many of you would like it if I gave you a list of people who wanted to buy insurance now? Everyone raised their hands. Truth: There is no such list. The one-word meaning of sales is "WORK". The 2-word meaning of sales is "WORK HARD". The 3-word meaning of sales is "WORK EVEN HARDER". How Do I Make a Cold Call? There answer is, "Don't". Don't make a cold call. Make a warm call.   Warm up the cold call and you'll get your results improved by 27%. Guaranteed.  We teach in our courses the 7 ways to warm up any calls. Instead of calling people and look for "Mr Andy", tell the other side that "I've been asked to give Andy a call". If they asked you "What's it regarding?" You don't answ

To survive in today’s markets, you need to follow a new set of rules. Just like you have at some time or other fire your boss, isn’t it time that you fire your customers too? You’ll probably say, “Are you mad? How can I fire my customers, the people that bring me money?" Read on to find out why firing customers can give you 80% more business and 100% more happiness… There are 4 types of customers in this world; I call them A B C D: A – stands for Awesome , the best customers that anyone can find, people that give you high margins, advance payments, regular business and large deals. Everyone’s dream customer. B – stands for Basic – the basic customers that you have to keep you busy with normal profits and cash inflow. Everyone’s daily customers. C – stands for Can’t Deal With – the type of customers that ask for things to be done or delivered yesterday and when you ask for payment, it is always ‘tomorrow or next week’. You make almost zero profit and cashflow on them.

What motivate people to buy?  Why is it that some salespeople seem to have no challenge in selling, while others cannot even get people to part with one dollar?   People are motivated by a ' What's In It For Me? " attitude.  If you want your prospects to buy your products or service, you must give them the 'It" or good reason to buy.   We know that people don't buy just for the sake of buying.  People make decisions based on the vested interest of the outcome of the decision.  The challenge of every salesperson is to learn the interest or motive pattern of the prospect - know that motivates them to say yes.  If the salesperson focuses on the motives behind their desire to purchase, and supply an incentive to that motive, he will fulfil their desire and get the sale.  It's that simple.   What then are the underlying motives for people to buy?  There are 11 emotional reasons in order of importance: They are all to feel: Good Powerful Liked Lov

Note: The next Selling Sans to the Arabs is on 23 Feb 2018 Friday 9 am to 12.30 pm, details at here . Imagine me at the North Pole to perform the world's most difficult task: Sell Ice to the Eskimos.  The Eskimos have too much ice, why would they want to buy ice from a guy from Equator Singapore? But I know that I can easily sell ice to the Eskimos because I am not selling anything. I am just creating the conditions and leading the buyers to buy . Selling is not about convincing buyers to buy but let the buyers be convinced by themselves.  This is in line with Sun Tzu Art of War: Win Without Fighting. Hardly anyone is ready to buy what you want to sell  Often you have to sell when people don't see the need at all.  When WeChat was launched in Jan 2011, no one can imagine that people want to use WeChat when Whatsapp was so popular and successful as a messaging app. But today WeChat has become an indispensable tool for payments, marketing, search, messaging and brand bu

For years multi-national companies have been paying tens of thousands of dollars every year to engage the best trainers to train their sales team so that they can out-sell the competition.   Google under 'Sales Training in Singapore' and you'll find dozens of sales courses, with some promising guaranteed improvements in your sales results or your money back.  I Andy Ng have been happily doing sales training as far back as May 2001.  I remembered my first seminar was on Saturday 19th May 2001 at Miramar Hotel on the topic " 5-Ways Leverage to Business Profits ".  Over the years I have trained over 81,131 people in 13 countries.  Among the companies I trained include the top Feng Shui company Wayon Net, top insurer AIA, top Junior College Hwa Chong Institution and top property developer Capitaland.  To-date, I am still learning and trying to crack the secret to sales success.  With inspiration from the movie "Won't Back Down" and sales guru Tom H

By applying Sun Tzu Art of War's 5 Elements of 道天地将法 , we can improve our negotiation easily in this order as follows: Purpose 道: The purpose of your negotiation is not to get the best deal for yourself, nor is it to squeeze your customer or supplier.  Sun Tzu said the highest ground shall be your purpose, so in business our purpose of negotiating is to have a long term win-win relationship .  Because if we are only interested in one-off deal, we don't need to negotiate, we just adopt a 'take it or leave it' attitude.   Boundaries 天 : Know your boundaries, i.e. your limits, what you can give and what are absolutely non-negotiable, like your integrity.    Details 地 : The devil is in the details, never leave details to another day, for it is only at the negotiation table that you have the opportunity to get what you want, including the details. Always minute down the details for you cannot rely on faint memory.  Lead   将.  Yes, you have to lead the negotiation a

Mindfulness is often thought of the same as meditation, when in fact it is more than that.  Perhaps it is easier to understand mindfulness from the opposite, i.e. when do we consider someone as mindless?  When he does things without thinking, or when he does things with so much 'auto-pilot' that he becomes robotic and apply the same approach to different situations.  Like many salespeople assume customers like details and would go into details without considering the client's needs.  Mindlessness can also be found in salespeople that are ill prepared and incompetent, and yet try to pretend that they know.   Simply put, mindfulness has 3 elements: you need to first take note of something, be aware of it, and remember that awareness .  So for example if I am being mindful in a sales meeting, it means that I have to take note of my client's objections, be aware that it is an objection and remember that awareness.  Note that once you have mindfulness of an experience

Yes, everyone is a salesperson, because selling is moving people. Most people are in non-sales selling, that is, they are not doing sales as their main job, like an insurance agent. But most people are in jobs that involves communication, influence and persuasion, and these are nothing but sales.  We at Asia Trainers call these sales job as Moving People. Myths and Truths of Moving People: Moving people is not about getting your way with others but about helping others get their way . You too will get your way when you help others get their way.  As what Zig Ziglar said, "You can get anything you want in your life as long as you help enough other people get what they want".  Moving people is not about how much conviction you have, but how much people feel about your conviction.  As what Andy Ferrari Norman said, it is not about convincing people but about conveying your ideas in ways that make people be convinced by themselves. Moving people depends more on the creativ

Whether you are in sales, marketing, business development, support or management, you will come across the answer 'No' many times at work. Many people equate 'No' to 'No Opportunity' or 'No Chance', when in fact No can mean over 20 things as follows: Know More .  Here the customer wants to know more, and if you don't tell him, he will say no Still Thinking .  Many people hate to decide immediately as they don't want to be seen as rash Procrastinate . People procrastinate because it gives them a comfy feeling that they're in control, when in fact procrastination simply puts you higher risk as things may change. OK but not Strong enough to say yes.  This is the most common, when you feel that there is still certain things lacking but you just don't know what it is now. Test Your Patience .  Here saying no will test if you're serious to pursue further or just give up Need to Clarify First .  People will ask questions to clari

Whether you are in sales, management, operations, finance, administration, engineering or IT, you cannot run away from presentation.  A presentation is an opportunity for you to show people what you have so that they will buy you and buy what you sell.  And we are all selling all the time, the biggest sale would be to sell ideas.   A presentation is not a pitch, it is a give and take exchange .  This is an opportunity for you to 'switch heads' or exchange information with your audience, which can range from one person to a thousand.  The goal is for you to fully understand your audience situation so that you can tailor-make a product, service or idea to them. Even if you are not good in presentation, you need to avoid doing the 3 things that make people resent what you present: Irrelevant information Information not customized to the audience Boring presentation.  That's why they call 'bored to death'! On the other hand, there are 7 keys to present so th

To sell well in any market, the key is to ask and answer 5 questions well.  The 5 questions lead from one to the other.  Note that in this fast-paced business climate, you must be ready to be wrong and don't defend your answers if you think they're wrong.  Change your answers fast by taking the right action and you'll be on the road to success. The 5 Questions are: What is your Specialisation ?  Type of customer? Product or service?  Geographical area?  For us, we provide effective training on sales and management for companies in Singapore and the region.  Differentiation : How are your products and services different from others?  In what ways they are superior ?  For us, our training programs focus on easy to remember key points and practical issues.  In fact we don't train but coach people in our courses, leading to participants feeling their burden relieved.  Segmentation : What are your very best customers, the ones that appreciate your areas of specialisat

Human beings like to fight even though they know very well from past history that fighting never work for any parties.  Just look at the devastation World Wars I and II and the on-going wars today and you'll realize how silly we are. Psychologists said that fighting is an animal instinct, for people have this scarcity mentality and they are too attached to the notion of having things and that's why we cannot let go. Yet wisdom from over 2,000 years of ancient civilisation including Sun Tzu Art of War, Zhuang Zi, Confucius, Lao Zi and Sidharta Gotama 'Pali Canon' told us that at the end of the day, the winner is the one that wins EVEN WHEN HE DOESN'T FIGHT .  In fact smart companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google and Apple know and practised these No-War Strategies.  In particular, Facebook is a latecomer in social media but they did not go out to fight head-on with pioneers like MySpace and Friendster.  Instead Facebook created a perfect photo-sharing and time-l

"You can make a great product, but you have to convince people that what you are selling is greater".   CEO John Sculley, in his famous speech to Apple Computer staff in 1983, said, "We are not selling computers, we are selling what people can do with computers.  A tool for the mind, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is limitless". Indeed, in sales, if you just sell a product or service, you are very much limited in how much you can sell.  But the moment you turn your selling into what your product or service can do for the customer, you can sell anything .  There is simply no limit in your selling.  Just look at the phenomenal sales of iPad and Samsung Galaxy phones and you will know what I'm talking about. The following are the 5 most common ways to be limitless in your selling: The Money that Can be Made with What You Are Selling.  As long as this money that people get is more than what they are paying, there is value in what you selling. The Money th