With permission, I want to share an article with you that I found very informative and well presented.  Take time to read it and give it some thought.  I think you will find it beneficial.  I want to thank the writer for allowing me to post it.  It appears here exactly as written by the author.

What will happen to your business in 2012 if you don’t get enough sales?

What comes up for you when you think about selling your services or products?

Do you feel upbeat, positive and ready to share the wonders of what you do? Or do you feel dread, doubt, fear or a combination of negative emotions?

You may have an armoury of selling skills but if you have negative emotions going on inside, this will get in the way of your sales success.

The signs that negativity is working against you are:
• You are busy doing stuff that has little or no impact on increasing sales
• You avoid activities that you know would have a positive impact on your sales success
• You experience negative emotions when you think about sales
• You use the doom and gloom news as an excuse for your lack of sales
• Your inner voice keeps reminding you of your weaknesses
• You’re working really hard, putting in the hours…and still not getting the sales results you want

So what do you do?

The first thing you need to do is to become aware that the strategy you currently have IS NOT WORKING FOR YOU! If you continue doing what you’re doing, you will not achieve the sales success you want. Once you acknowledge that things need to change, you’ll find it much easier to incorporate changes. It’s so easy to continue with the habits you’ve created…it takes conscious thought and effort to create new habits.
So how ready are you to let go off what you’ve been doing…or not doing…to increase your sales?

Here are some easy steps you can take to get you on the path to sales success:
1. Get rid of the negative language you use about you, the economy, the people you come into contact with and anything else that saps your positive energy. Instead of “Things are really hard at the moment” use “Things may not be easy but the more people I speak to the easier it will get”.

2. Start noticing the positive reasons for the situations you find yourself in. When you lose a sales ask yourself “What can I learn from this that will give me a greater chance of getting future sales?”

3. You don’t get what you want in life, you get what you expect. So start expecting great things to happen! Henry Ford said “If you believe you can or believe you can’t…you’re right” Go into every sales interaction knowing that if you can give this person exactly what they want or need you have a great chance of doing the deal.

4. Use more ‘YOU’ language when talking with your prospective customers. Focus on finding out about their issues, pains and desires by asking well crafted open questions. Only then can you weave your product or service into the conversation as an ideal solution.

5. Focus on IPA…Income Producing Activity. This is the stuff you do before closing a sale. Once you’ve done the deal it’s not IPA – it’s customer service. The more IPA you do…the more sales success you will achieve. Typical IPA activities are networking…in person and social media, following up enquiries, meetings with prospective customers, proposals and increasing your profile as the ‘go to’ person.

6. Prioritising the important stuff. When you have established all the IPA you could be doing, focus on the FBI…Fastest Business Impact. What IPA is going to have the fastest impact on increasing sales? That’s what you do first. It’s so easy to get that little job out of the way…then that other little task…and before you know it the day has gone and the most important activity remains undone!

7. Make sales FUN. How can you think about sales that would cause you to be more relaxed about the whole thing? It may be that you give activities different labels. I was delivering a workshop recently when one of the business owners said she felt like she was choking when she thought about closing a sale so I suggested that she think of that activity more about the other person realising that she could give them exactly what they needed. I could see a sense of relief as she nodded and said she was much more comfortable with that! How can you reframe the activity to suit you?

Incorporating these 7 easy steps will change your selling experience. You’ll be more relaxed and less stressed. You’ll be focusing on the activity that increases sales and wasting less time on the activities you used to avoid sales.

Not only will you be having more fun…you’ll be having more sales success!

Leigh Ashton
www.sales-consultancy.com
020 7903 5426
results@sales-consultancy.com