Part Two

2.  Goals cannot be contrary to your other goals.

            If your goal is to own a home that you’ve described to a “T” on your piece of paper and the total dollar amount of the home equals $500,000 and you can only truly picture yourself in an $100,000 home it’ll never happen.

            Though, I personally believe anyone can double their income and sales in one year if your income is $20,000 and you want to make $100,000 you might not believe it can be done.

            You must feel it, believe it, see yourself achieving what it is you want.  Not only must you describe your goals you must be congruent in your goals.  Your goals cannot be contradictory.

3.  Secret number 3 is to develop your goals in one of six areas of your life:

1. Personal (family, home, friends)
2. Spiritual (ethical & or religious)
3. Community (social & cultural)
4. Career (financial, business)
5. Health (physical, weight, working out, eating)
6. Mental (educational, personal growth, business growth)

4.  Always write your goals in the POSITIVE not the NEGATIVE.

            Make your goals what you want not what you don’t want.  Part of the reason for describing goals in a detailed, descriptive way is to help us imagine having what we want.

            Your subconscious mind cannot determine right from wrong, your subconscious doesn’t lie.

The more positive your description of your goals the more positive results you will achieve

            Never approach your goals from what you don’t want, or don’t want to happen.  Always approach your goals from what you do want and what you want to happen.

5.  Write your goal out like you were reading a novel.

            When you read a novel the author has to describe what is happening in a way that you begin to visualize it in your mind.  The more descriptive the more you visualize it the more you believe it will happen.

            If your goal is a home don’t describe it as so many square feet with so many bedrooms and so many bathrooms.

            Close your eyes and visualize exactly the way those bedrooms look, the floor, the walls, how it is decorated, and your subconscious mind will be able to visualize it.

            Soon you’ll be able to feel the home, smell it, and hear the sounds of your new home.

6.  Write down your goals

            I have a saying that you should always ask for the WORLD and if you don’t get the world take an island.  You absolutely must write down your goals. 

            The more descriptive you make your goals the better.  Let your mind figure out the details of how you will achieve your goals.  Focus on the end thing you want and don’t worry about the details.  Your subconscious will figure it out.

            Just visualize it.  How do you visualize your goals?  Visualize your goals by describing your goals in a way that paints a picture of what it is you want.

            Make the picture as vivid as possible.  That’s why its important to write down your goals.  Describe it like a novel. 

Your Goals are Done, Now What?

            Never share your goals.  You’ll find that, with the exception of your closest friends, relatives, or spouse, most folks will drag you down.  They’ll be real negative about your goals.

            It is a heck of a lot easier to be a negative then a positive.  Share your problems with the negative folks and keep your goals to yourself.

            Review your goals in the morning and just before you retire in the evening.  Go to bed with a positive reading of your “wants” (goals).

            Follow the process I’ve outlined everyday and you will be on your way to achieving unlimited success in every aspect of your life.

Happy Selling!

David…

P.S.  Head over to the catalog page to begin to invest in your SELF today.  Click here

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Random Thoughts On Increasing Pre-Need Sales

These are little things that may not seem like much but add up quickly to huge results.

Here’s an interesting ditty on time I haven’t spoken about much and I’m just as guilty as you are by not using this strategy.

A study done years ago looked at how much “productive” time CEO(s) accomplished per day working.

I’m going by memory but I believe it was less than 30 minutes a day of productive time.

One thing I know for certain, for the Pre-Need Seller, there are numerous time wasting things occurring every single day.  Before long YOU begin to wonder why your sales suck!

My Number One Strategy is:

LIMIT ACCESS TO YOU

To really appreciate this strategy you’ve got to take a long hard look at how much of your time (by the minute) is being stolen through little things. 

For example: 

1. If you are going to go to lunch make your lunch partner come to you.  You’ll be able to continue working and won’t waste 10 – 30 minutes in the restaurant waiting on your lunch partner.
2. Quit checking your email every 5-minutes.  Check it once, twice, three times a day at predetermined times.
3. Forget the impromptu meetings.  Meetings are out.  Meetings are the most unproductive time wasters on the planet.
4. Don’t wast lots of time with Prospects who are less than a 6 on a scale of 1 – 10.  Spend time with the 7 – 10’s on the scale.  Use your assistant (if you have one) or marketing to warm them up before you spend lots of wasted time on the phone or in-person meetings.
5. People need to complain about how hard it is to get to you.  Make it tough.  Quit wasting time by focusing on the little things that steal your time away.  Eliminating just a couple of these time wasters will add to your productive time and SALES.  By the way, sales is where it’s at.  These time wasting things take away from your presentation/close, follow-up, stay-in-touch, and other productive endeavors that ultimately make you money.  Stay focused! 

Finally, I’d say to use TIME BLOCKING to help you create a schedule you can keep.  Also, use your TO DO LIST and make sure you’re crossing off things you’ve got to do daily.  I like to use a simple yellow legal sized pad.  Without organization there is chaos (as my former teacher used to say).  I’ve added: 

Without organization there is chaos

and TIME WASTED

and NO SALES!

Top Producers are way more productive with time.  Just adding 30 minutes to an hour of productive time will increase your sales dramatically.

My Number Two Strategy to Increase sales:

The COPY STRATEGY

We’ll talk more about this one next time.

Happy Selling!

David

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If you’ve been keeping up with this site for any amount of time you’re aware that I believe you can double your sales in half the time.

You can not only double your sales in half the time but you don’t have to work any harder just smarter.

If there are sellers of pre-arrangements making six-figures a year why not YOU?

Common, before you quit listening let me finish my thought.

If there are sellers of pre-need making plus one hundred thousand a year why can’t you?

And, if you made considerably less than a hundred thousand dollars last year you need to keep reading this post.

Or, you’re close to 6-figures a year and just can’t quite hit the magic number?

Think about this for a moment.

What does a seller of pre-arrangements need to do different to make 6-figures?  Well, for one thing, quit doing the time wasting things that don’t put you closer to a sale.  You might want to make a change.

The Definition of Insanity…is to do the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

Dave’s rule of thumb:

If it isn’t working, try something else.

But, instead of a radical change make it a small and simple change.

Here are a few strategies to get you to the $100,000.00 mark.

First; spend 5 minutes a day on your goals (if you don’t know where you’re heading any road will get you there).

FOCUS!

Second; spend an hour a day improving yourself (NO one can take your knowledge or experience)

Third; do something every day that gets you closer to a sale.  This is by far the easiest thing to do that most mediocre sales people won’t do.  Let me repeat that.  Whether it is making an appointment, making a presentation, making that phone call, mailing a letter, knocking on a door, hunting for a referral, you name it.  Just one thing every day that gets you closer or a sale.

Fourth; mine your natural market.  Leverage your spheres of influence to generate referrals

Fifth; capture an additional niche market

Sixth; add one more prospecting strategy

Seventh; organize your schedule (time block, build a list of tasks, ignore your email, skip the gossip) and focus

Eighth; go through previous posts on this site (ther are numerous specific strategies to help you)

Nineth; one of the most difficult things to change is your belief system.  If you believe you can’t do it you probably won’t do it.  This maybe the most difficult thing to change but you’ve got to do it.  I’ll be posting more on mindset and “persuasion” in the coming days. 

I guess the bottom line is to ABL (always be learning) and believe in your SELF because you can do it.  I can tell you that I believe you can do it all day long BUT DO YOU BELIEVE IT?

Happy Selling!

David…

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A fellow pre-need seller (who will remain nameless) really aggravated me the other day when he said he “can’t get things done”.

We’ve been talking about goals and
dreams and how to achieve more in 6 months
than you achieved all last year.

Sometimes I refer to it as “execution” other times “get-r-done” and still other times, “just do it“.

My fellow pre-need seller was complaining that he can’t get out all the correspondence he wants by January 4th.  Mind you, he told me this on December 1st.

Why?  I asked.

There isn’t enough time, he replied.

One of the biggest problems I see with Pre-Need Sellers is a lack of disciplined.  You don’t have to be super organized just disciplined to do something every day that’ll get you where you want to go.

So, I said to him.  Diagram, or flow chart, or list the things you’d have to do to get your mailing out.  Heck, he had maybe 7 items on the list.  Once or twice a week he took care of one of the items no matter how long it took.

Well, within 3 weeks he had done it all and hardly noticed.

Now, he’ll get the mailing out with plenty of time to spare.

Here’s the lesson: 

Do something every day that gets
you closer to a sale. 
OR,
do something every day that gets
you closer to your goal.

Think of it like you were eating an elephant.  Elephants are huge.  How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.

Happy Selling!

David…

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For most of us selling pre-need this time of year poses plenty of problems.  If you’ve already hit your goals for the year and heading off to a warm spot for the next couple of weeks disregard this post.

For everyone else working at the cemetery you’ll soon discover plenty of folks visiting graves of loved ones.

This poses a unique opportunity.

Work the grounds. 

Some call it fishing the grounds.

With lots and lots of people on the property you can easily strike up conversations.  As you do be ready for complaints ‘cause you’ll get plenty.  BUT, complaints are a good thing.  I’ve been working on the cemetery grounds for just over a week and have had huge success.

If I can do it, you can do it.

Roughly One in Three will want to do something.  Maybe another grave space, maybe a bench, a new marker….Something.  That something can be pre-need funeral.

Whatever it is…IT’S BUSINESS!

For the next two weeks it will be difficult to prospect because everyone (including you) will be thinking HOLIDAYS!

So, if you aren’t where you want to be get out onto the grounds and start talking to people.  You’ll soon discover fishing in a lake full of interested people will go along way to catching some fish (sales).

Happy Selling!

David

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I found an interesting quote from Winston Churchill that I think you’ll like.  It’s interesting because only YOU can do it…only you can make your DREAMS (goals) happen.

Sometimes you’ve got to turn the heat up to get the water to boil.

Emeril Lagasse likes to “kick it up a notch” whenever he yells, “BAM!”.

Well, it is the same for you.  There’s one weekend before Christmas and you can do it if you’ll kick it up a notch.

You can achieve your goal for the year.

Ok, yes, I’m prodding you to do it because YOU CAN DO IT!

Now, go do it.

Below is the Winston Churchill quote:

“If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

— Winston Churchill

Dave’s interpretation:

“If you will not focus on selling for the year when you have plenty of time to easily win without panicking, if you will not grab your goals when they are easy you may come to the moment when you have to really work your BUTT off and the odds are against you (time is running out).  There may even be a worse case..and you may have to work double time to make up for lost time even when there doesn’t seem to be any hope of succeeding.  But, it is better to exhaust every ounce of energy you have NOW to succeeding than to give up a miserable failure…not trying.”

Next time we’ll talk about a couple of strategies to help you achieve your selling goals for the last few days of the year.

Yes, it involves work.

But, if you don’t have money you’ve got time.

Happy Selling!

David…

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