Do you avoid networking events because you feel uncomfortable talking to strangers? Do you find yourself talking with friends instead of meeting new people because you don’t know what to say?

Stop missing out on valuable opportunities! Listen to my appearance on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio with Michele Price. In this ten-minute segment you’ll learn a simple four-step approach to having a great conversation with anyone, anytime!

To listen, just click on the link below. Or to download the segment to listen later, right-click the link and select “Save Target As…”

How to Create Great Networking Conversations, Don Cooper on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio (mp3)

Networking is a powerful strategy for boosting your sales. Discover how to make the most of it!

To learn more about Michele Price and listen to her interview other business experts on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio (which I heartily recommend), check out www.WhoIsMichelePrice.com.

I recently received a message via       social media from an acquaintance. (I won’t use the word “friend” because I    don’t actually know the person particularly well.)

It was a rather long sales letter. The message related how the person had started a new business venture, provided some details about the products and services offered, and closed with the following appeal:

I am reaching out to all of my connections and asking you, “will you please consider buying your services through me and support my business launch?” I set my personal goal to find 25 new customers by July 31st. Will you please be one of those 25 customers? I really need your support and would appreciate if you would ask your friends and family to support me as well.

Here’s a news flash: There may be a lot of good reasons to buy from you, but “supporting you” isn’t one of them.

I don’t mean to sound heartless or cruel—that’s just reality.

People don’t care about salespeople. Or companies. Or products. (See 14 Things Your Prospect Doesn’t Care About for more.) They care about themselves.

People don’t buy a product or service because they want to support the company. They buy it because of what the product or service does for the buyer—physically, emotionally or both.

Write this down and post it somewhere conspicuous:

It’s not the prospect’s job to care about you. It’s your job to care about them.

If you want to boost your sales, that caring attitude should manifest in all areas of your company’s operations: product design, staffing, customer service, guarantees and more. When you support your customers, then—and only then—will they support you.

In my last post, I wrote about the fact that if you want to increase your sales, you need to build trust with your prospects to overcome their natural skepticism and cynicism.

Which, naturally, leads to a question: How??

Here are 23 ways:

1. Send them useful articles and blog posts.
2. Always be courteous.
3. Give them a buyer’s guide.
4. Ask good questions to truly understand their issues.
5. Listen attentively.
6. Follow up.
7. Follow up quickly.
8. Provide them with free consulting.
9. Use self-deprecating humor.
10. Respect their time and intelligence.
11. Invite them to events where they can meet people or learn things.
12. Blog.
13. Give them a free trial or sample.
14. Share case studies, third-party reviews and testimonials.
15. Empathize with them.
16. Offer a money-back guarantee.
17. Be on time.
18. Refrain from speaking badly about anyone.
19. Give them a gift that helps them do their job.
20. Make it clear you won’t rush or pressure them.
21. Deliver on your promises.
22. Invite them to connect with you on social media.
23. Show them how to save money, even if it means a smaller commission.

Keep in mind that building trust takes time. (Longer with some people than others.) Be patient. Don’t get frustrated. The more effort you invest in demonstrating you’re trustworthy, the better your sales will be.

What other ways have you built trust with your prospects? Please share them in the comments.

As salespeople, professionals and business owners, we tend to believe that we’re working in our prospect’s best interests. If we recommend a product or service to them, it’s because we think it will help them solve their problems or achieve their goals.

And yet we get resistance and pushback from them. So many salespeople have complained to me that prospects won’t even talk to them, when all the salesperson is trying to do is help.

The problem is, prospects have a completely different perception. They see salespeople as working in their own best interests. If a salesperson recommends something, it’s because the salesperson makes money on the deal. Period.

Whose perception is right?

Both.

We see ourselves one way, prospects see us another. And both points of view are valid. Because, really, what good salespeople, professionals and business owners do is find ways to make the prospect’s interests and their own interests coincide, to mutual benefit.

So if you want to boost your sales, first, you need to recognize and appreciate that prospects don’t trust you immediately, no matter how pure of heart you are. And then you need to help your prospects understand that while you are indeed working in your own best interests, you’re also working in theirs.

That means investing the time and effort to build their trust. To help them overcome their fears of being lied to and cheated. (Which very well may have happened to them in the past.) And to instill in them a measure of confidence in you.

It doesn’t happen overnight, but with patience and persistence, you can show your prospects that your interest isn’t the only one you’re working in.

Are you losing sales to low-priced competitors?  You don’t have to lose the business! And you don’t have to drop your prices either!

Listen to my appearance on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio with Michele Price as I share three simple actions that will enable you to successfully win more business at higher prices. This eleven-minute segment will enable you to boost your sales, your commissions and your profits immediately!

To listen, just click on the link below. Or to download the segment to listen later, right-click the link and select “Save Target As…”

Three Keys to Charging More, Don Cooper on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio (mp3)

To learn more about Michele Price and listen to her interview other business experts on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio (which I seriously recommend), check out her web site: www.WhoIsMichelePrice.com.

I recently received a marketing piece in the mail from a local car care company. It was an oversized postcard listing their services and specials. But what stood out were the two photos—for all the wrong reasons.

On the front was a large stock photo of a family standing on a porch. Huh? What does this image have to do with auto maintenance? If you’re going to use a photo in your sales and marketing efforts, make it a shot that relates to what you sell—your product, your facility, your employees, etc.

On the back was a photo of the shop’s owner. Much better, right? Except that the picture was awful. The owner wasn’t smiling, he was scowling. And whether because of bad lighting, bad camera settings or bad printing, he looked sweaty and grimy. Far from inspiring confidence, it actually made me uncomfortable. It looked more like a mug shot than a professional portrait.

Used correctly, photos can be a powerful tool for boosting your sales. Used incorrectly, they can actually work against you. Make sure your photos communicate the messages you want them to.

Want more ideas on incorporating photos into your sales and marketing efforts? Check out How to Use Photos to Boost Your Sales.

Every prospect we encounter has a unique set of wants and needs. However, there are some wants that are universal. And these generic desires are just as important to satisfy as a prospect’s unique wants. Here are six things you can count on every prospect wanting.

1. Information
In order to make a good decision, prospects need information. Not everyone needs the same amount, though. Some don’t need very much, while others demand everything you know and then some. And you need to adjust accordingly. If you give too much information to someone who doesn’t want it, they’ll tune out. On the other hand, if you don’t provide sufficient information to the person who craves it, they won’t trust you.

2. Guidance
Prospects want advice. And not just about what to buy, but how to use it, take care of it and get the most out of it. They may also want advice about issues only peripheral to your product or service: strategy, timing, design and other subjects. They more good counsel you can provide, the more of an expert they see you as.

3. To be listened to
While prospects want advice, they want advice that’s specific to them. And they can’t get that from a salesperson who doesn’t listen to them. (A problem which occurs all too frequently.)  Before you go spouting information and advice, you need to thoroughly understand a prospect’s needs, goals, challenges, fears, priorities, values and more.

4. An advocate
Buying can be daunting. Especially if:
    • the purchase is big or particularly important;
    • the process is long and complex;
    • it’s a prospect’s first time; or
    • they’ve had a bad previous experience.

That’s why buyers want an advocate to help them. And if something goes wrong, who’s on the prospect’s side?  Buyers want to be cared about, both before and after the sale.

5. Respect
Regardless of a person’s age, sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, budget or values, they are entitled to respect. And if a prospect doesn’t get it, they’ll buy from someone else. For eight specific elements you need to show respect for, check out Sales Advice from Aretha Franklin.

6. Appreciation
Nobody likes feeling taken for granted. Customers want to know they’re truly appreciated. It makes them feel important and valued. And a perfunctory “thank you” delivered with all the sincerity of an automaton doesn’t cut it. So what could you do to better communicate your appreciation to your buyers? How could you show them how much you value them?

Whatever you sell, whoever you sell to, every one of your prospects wants these six items. Are you delivering them?

Selling is challenging. There are lots of obstacles to overcome: competition, buyer reluctance, the economy in general, and more.

None of these, however, is the biggest obstacle to your sales success.

What is?

You.

You can blame the economy, your company, your product, short-sighted discounters, tight lending guidelines, stupid customers and various other external forces all you want. The fact remains, if your sales suck, it’s your fault.

Whether you’re a salesperson, small business owner, professional or CEO, the buck stops with you.

You can’t control all those external factors. You can only control yourself.

Your current sales are based on the choices you’ve made up to this point. Your future sales will be determined by the choices you make from this point forward.

So if you really want to increase your sales, the question is, what are you going to do about it?

Listening is one of the most critical skills in selling, yet most salespeople, professionals and business owners are terrible at it. (This goes for most customer service representatives, sales managers and CEO’s as well.)

You can both improve and practice your listening skills by checking out my appearance on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio with Michele Price.

In this ten-minute segment, you’ll discover:
    • The first step in listening more effectively
    • Two things you should never do while your prospect is talking
    • How to remember more of what you hear
    • Why what’s not said can be as important as what is
    • How to know when your prospect is getting closer to buying 
    • And more!
 
To listen, just click on the link below. Or to download the segment to listen later, right-click the link and select “Save Target As…”

Seven Secrets for Super Listening, Don Cooper on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio (mp3)

To learn more about Michele Price and listen to her interview other business experts on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio (which I absolutely recommend), check out her web site: www.WhoIsMichelePrice.com.

I spent this past weekend at a three-day aikido seminar taught by Hiroshi Ikeda Sensei. Aikido is a Japanese martial art that focuses on redirecting an attacker’s energy and using it against them. I’ve been studying it for about five years and absolutely love it. I’ve learned a lot that can be applied to life outside the dojo.

Here are five lessons I took away from the weekend seminar and how you can apply them to your sales.

1. Find the connection
Much of the weekend was devoted to finding the connection between you and the other person, an essential element of aikido. You can’t redirect an attacker’s energy if there’s no connection. Once you find that connection, however, you can redirect it wherever you want it to go.

Similarly, in sales, the power is in the connection. You need to connect with your prospect to create rapport and build trust. You can find that connection by doing research and by asking them questions. Look for common experiences, interests, fears and goals.
 
2. Doing it correctly is more important than doing it fast
Almost every time I tried to do a technique quickly, I failed. When I slowed down and focused on proper form, I had much better success.

Ideally, when it comes to sales—and business in general—you want to do things correctly and fast. If you have to choose though, pick doing it right, even if it takes longer. Correcting mistakes can be far more costly and make customers much angrier. And the more practice you have doing something correctly, the faster you’ll be able to do it.

3. Use what works for you
In aikido, every technique has different variations and every person you train with has a different style. Because what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work the same for someone else. Your height, weight, strength and other factors all influence what works best for you.

There are lots of different sales strategies and tactics as well. And again, what works for one person may not work for you, based on your personality, experience, industry and so on. That’s why when I conduct sales training seminars, I give attendees lots of ideas to choose from. Figure out what works best for you.

4. Don’t worry about how you compare to others
The participants at the seminar ranged from beginners to sixth degree black belts. Having trained for only about five years, I’m much closer to the former than the latter. So it was a bit frustrating at times when I was struggling with things others seemed to do effortlessly. I had to remind myself, “Of course they’re better than I am—they’ve been training much longer!” The only person I needed to compare myself to was me. What mattered was simply that I left the seminar better than I was before it.

It’s easy to compare yourself with other salespeople, professionals or business owners. But it’s a fool’s comparison. It’s irrelevant if someone else is better than you. What’s important is, are you better today than you were yesterday? And will you be better still tomorrow?

5. You need to always be learning
One tremendous benefit of training with so many different people over the course of the weekend was giving me a clearer sense of how far I’ve come and how far I still have to go. While I’ve learned a lot in the past five years of aikido training, the seminar reinforced how much more I have yet to learn. And it’s an exciting prospect.

Likewise, in sales, there’s always more to learn. In fact, if you’re not learning, you’re regressing, because you inevitably forget things. So you need to be committed to lifelong learning. Invest in seminars, cd’s and videos. Read books, magazines and blogs. Get individual coaching. Always be thinking, “What can I do better?”

By the way, I recommend aikido to anyone interested in learning a martial art or looking for a new challenge. For more information, click here or do a search for the term “aikido” along with your city to find a dojo near you.

Most of us know by now that people make their buying decisions emotionally, not logically. But which emotions trigger the sale? And how can you leverage them?

Listen to my appearance on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio with Michele Price as I discuss the five critical emotions that trigger buying decisions. In less than ten minutes, you’ll discover valuable insights you’ll be able to apply immediately!

To listen, just click on the link below. Or to download the segment to listen later, right-click the link and select “Save Target As…”

Five Emotional Buying Triggers, Don Cooper on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio (mp3)

To learn more about Michele Price and listen to her interview other business experts on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio (which I definitely recommend), check out her web site: www.WhoIsMichelePrice.com.

Listen to my latest interview with Jim Blasingame on The Small Business Advocate® Radio Show. The 15-minute interview is broken into two segments.

Whether you’re a CEO, manager, small business owner or salesperson, you’ll discover why it’s critical to address a customer’s emotional needs as well as their physical needs. You’ll also learn the seven emotional needs you need to satisfy in order to boost your sales.

A great sales presentation makes people want to buy. A poor presentation costs you the sale. Want to make sure your presentations are superior?

Listen to my appearance on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio with Michele Price as I share a simple five-step process for creating winning sales presentations. In this eight-minute segment, you’ll discover:
    • The best way to open your presentation
    • How to build your credibility
    • Why you don’t need to have the “best” product or service to make the sale
    • The one thing you must have in your presentation 
    • And more!

To listen, just click on the link below. Or to download the segment to listen later, right-click the link and select “Save Target As…”

Five Steps to Creating a Powerful Presentation, Don Cooper on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio (mp3)

To learn more about Michele Price and listen to her interview other business experts on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio (which I strongly recommend), check out her web site: www.WhoIsMichelePrice.com.

I love quotations. Great quotes can be inspiring, insightful and instructive. Here are some more of my favorites:

“Character is the salesperson’s stock in trade. The product itself is secondary. Truthfulness, enthusiasm and patience are great assets to every salesperson. Without them, they couldn’t go far. Courage and courtesy are essential equipment.” —George M. Adams

“Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does.” —Stuart Henderson

“A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in-between does what he wants to do.” —Bob Dylan

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” —Sally Berger

“Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless.” —Thomas A. Edison

“I am always doing things I can’t do. That’s how I get to do them.” —Pablo Picasso

“Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.” —Donald Porter

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.”             —African proverb

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’” —Mary Anne Radmacher

“I like thinking big. If you’re going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big.” —Donald Trump 

“Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” —Henry Ford

“Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” —Scott Adams 

“Nobody has things just as he would like them. The thing to do is to make a success with what material I have. It is a sheer waste of time and soulpower to imagine what I would do if things were different. They are not different.” —Dr. Frank Crane

“Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got.” —Janis Joplin

“There’s nothing wrong with wealth. There’s everything wrong with poverty.”       —Arthur Laffer

“If you never change your mind, why have one?” —Edward De Bono

“Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.” —Theodore Isaac Rubin

“If you don’t risk anything, then you risk even more.” —Erica Jong

“Ordinary won’t change the world.” —Lewis Gordon Pugh

“Don’t be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid.” —John Keats

“No one ever listened themselves out of a sale.” —Don Cooper

For more of my favorite quotations, check out Great Thoughts on Sales, Business and Success Volume I, Volume II, Volume III and Volume IV.

By the way, what are some of your favorite quotations?

You can recite every feature and benefit of your entire line. You can explain exactly how you stack up against your competition. You can discuss financing options ad nauseam.

But can you tell a story?

If you want to boost your sales, your storytelling ability is critical.

Why?

Because stories are powerful communication tools. Stories:
    • are engaging
    • can inform and entertain at the same time
    • are enjoyable to read and listen to
    • can make people laugh, which builds rapport
    • are memorable
    • can put even the most arcane data in context.

Long lists of features and benefits put prospects to sleep. A well-told story grabs their attention and keeps it.

When you’re talking about your product or service, the prospect thinks about it in the abstract. When you relate a tale of how a customer used your product or service, your prospect relates to the customer in the story.

Typical sales presentations try to make a logical case for buying. Stories enable you to engage prospects emotionally, which is the key to buying decisions.

Want to hook your prospect’s attention? Rather than open your sales presentation by talking about the history of your company and your commitment to excellence, blah blah blah, open instead with a story about a customer who faced the same challenges or had the same goals your prospect does.

Want to close your presentation on a high note? Tell a story that illustrates how the features and benefits you mentioned earlier in your presentation impacted a customer in the real world and the results it created for them.

What stories could you tell? How could you use them?

When you integrate stories into your sales and marketing efforts, you may not live happily ever after, but you will enjoy more sales success.

Want to see an example of a sales story? Click here.

Why do some people seem to be able to increase their sales at will, while others constantly struggle? And more importantly, how can you move from the latter group to the former?

Listen to my appearance on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio with Michele Price as I share four critical elements for boosting your sales. In just seven minutes, you’ll discover:
    • Why a positive attitude isn’t enough
    • How to be perceived as more professional than the average salesperson
    • Four things you need to know well
    • How to create long-term relationships with your customers

To listen, just click on the link below. Or to download the segment to listen later, right-click the link and select “Save Target As…”

Four Keys to Boosting Your Sales, Don Cooper on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio (mp3)

To learn more about Michele Price and listen to her interview other business experts on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio (which I highly recommend), check out her web site: www.WhoIsMichelePrice.com.

I just got back from a trip to Washington, DC. Whenever I’m in the DC area, I make it a point to stop by Five Guys Burgers & Fries at least once during the trip.

Five Guys is a small chain that started with a single location in the DC suburbs and has been spreading across the country like kudzu, garnering awards in every city it enters.

What makes Five Guys a favorite of both critics and customers? And more importantly, what can we as salespeople, business owners and professionals learn from them? Here’s some food for thought:

1. Do what you do best
The owners of Five Guys understand the power of focus: it enables you to be really good at what you do. Five Guys Burgers & Fries does just that—burgers and fries. They don’t do salads or wings or sandwiches or wraps or chicken tenders or onion rings. They don’t even do milkshakes.

Are you trying to be all things to all people? Or are you focused on delivering a specific product or service to a particular customer?

2. Differentiate yourself
In any given city, there are about 14,000 places you can get a burger. So why should someone choose Five Guys over all those competitors? Three things stand out:

Toppings—Among the 15 toppings you can choose from are grilled onions, jalapeno peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, relish, green peppers and more. All free.

Fries—Fresh potatoes are cut right in the store. How do you know they’re fresh? Every store has a whiteboard sign stating where in Idaho that day’s potatoes came from. Also, those potatoes are actually stacked in the dining room. During lunch and dinner rushes, you’ll see workers walk out into the dining room, hoist a sack of potatoes over their shoulder, and head back into the kitchen.

Peanuts—Dying of hunger while you’re standing in line waiting to order? Help yourself to unlimited free peanuts. There’s a box or barrel of them in every restaurant.

Whatever you sell, there are lots of other companies who also sell it. What makes you truly different? Why should prospects choose you?

3. Be consistent
Like any chain, Five Guys has to deliver a consistent experience, so whichever outlet you visit, your expectations are met. But the very first Five Guys had to deliver a consistent experience to build its following in the first place.

Think like a chain. How can you create systems that ensure your customer has a consistent, dependable experience with you?

4. Offer value
Five Guys isn’t cheap, but they’re not ludicrously expensive either. You’ll pay more there than you would for a “value meal” at a major chain, but you won’t need to max out your credit card. And you get generous portions for your money—a large order of fries can feed an apartment complex.

Note: “Value” does not mean “discount”—a distinction Five Guys understands. As their web site proudly proclaims:

“Five Guys does not offer any coupons or discounts. We strive to serve the highest quality product possible, at a reasonable price, every day! We do not discount the price of our product because we refuse to discount the quality of our product.”

Your prospects don’t necessarily want the best price, but they do want the best value. Are you giving it to them? Without constant discounting?

5. Be great, not good
These days, good isn’t good enough. Lots of companies are good. If your customer’s experience with you is merely good, they’ll try somewhere else next time.

If you want your clients to return again and again, rave about you on Facebook and Twitter, and send you hand-written notes (which Five Guys locations post on their walls), you need to be freakin’ great. I’m talking eyes-bugging-out, big-stupid-grin-inducing, blow-their-expectations-out-of-the-water fantastic. I mean Cajun-style-fries-with-malt-vinegar amazing. (I’m drooling just thinking about them.)

So how do you rate? Are you, your company, and your product or service just good? Or are you truly great?

To find a Five Guys outlet near you and experience their deliciousness for yourself, visit www.fiveguys.com. While you’re there, think about how you can apply these principles to your own business. It’s a proven recipe for success.

So you want to start a blog, eh? Well, good for you. A blog can be a powerful sales and marketing tool for your business. (In fact, I wrote an article a while back entitled Ten Reasons Blogging is Good for Your Sales.)

Before you start banging away on your keyboard, however, there are some issues you need to consider. Because they can mean the success or failure of your blog. Here are eight questions you need to answer before you publish your first post.

1. Who is my audience?
Like other sales and marketing tools, your audience determines almost everything about how you use your blog. You can’t write for everyone. The more specific your content, the more devoted your following will be.

So who are you writing for? What do they want and need? What are their hopes, fears and desires? What makes them laugh? What offends them?

In my case, my audience is primarily salespeople, sales managers, professionals and business owners. So everything I write (with the exception of my annual humorous Christmas pieces) is written with that audience in mind. CEO’s, marketing managers and others may also read my blog, but if I was specifically targeting them, my content would look a lot different.

2. How frequently will I post?
You can post anywhere from daily to monthly. But whatever your publishing schedule, it should be consistent. If you post for several days in a row, then don’t post anything for a few weeks, your readers will think you’ve stopped altogether.

So how often can you commit to posting? How frequently do you have something relevant to say? How conveniently can you fit writing into your already-busy schedule?

(Tip: You can write several articles at once, then publish them at regular intervals.)

3. What will I post?
Your blog is only as good as its content. What kinds of content do you want to provide? How-to’s? Insights and opinions? News? Reviews?

(Tip: Your blog should not be purely promotional fodder about your business. Nobody wants to read advertising.)

If you’d like some ideas to stimulate your thinking, check out 23 Things to Post on Your Blog.

4. Who will be responsible for posting?
If you’re a professional or a sole proprietor, this is a pretty easy question to answer. But if you have employees, this is a question worth pondering.

If you’re not a great writer, it would be better for your business if someone else took on this responsibility. Preferably, someone with enthusiasm for the task.

(Tip: Creating blog posts may be a job that is best divided among several people. That can give your blog a variety of voices and enable multiple people in your company to build their fame and credibility.)

5. Who will coordinate posting?
If more than one person will be doing the writing, somebody needs to be in charge of coordination. This person must be responsible for making sure people get their articles written in a timely fashion. The coordinator also must ensure that every potential blog posting meets the necessary standards required to maintain and enhance your company’s image online.

6. Who will be allowed to post?
If more than one person in your company will be posting on your blog, you’ll need guidelines to prevent bruised egos among your employees. Drawing up a simple set of parameters will keep morale high.

(Tip: Consider enabling customers to post directly on your blog.)

7. Are there any legal issues to be aware of?
Certain industries (medicine, law, financial services, among others) carry with them restrictions regarding what kinds of information and advice can be published. If you have any uncertainties, check with an attorney.

8. How will I spread the word about my blog?
“If you build it, they will come” does not apply to blogs. Like any other product, a blog has to be marketed effectively to be successful. After all, what’s the point of writing a blog if nobody’s reading it?

(Tip: Develop an actual marketing plan for your blog. It will give you new ideas for marketing other elements of your business as well.)

There are millions of blogs out there. If you want yours to be one of the successful ones, spend some time answering these eight questions. It will benefit your blog, which will benefit your business.

Asking the right questions is the key to making the sale. In my sales training seminars, I go so far as to provide attendees with as many as forty custom-designed questions to ask their prospects.

There’s one question, however, that’s never among them. Because it should be avoided at all costs. That question is:

Why?

Okay, right now, that’s exactly what you’re wondering: “Why?”

Here’s the reason.

Questions that begin with “ why” sound judgmental. They put people on the defensive. If I were to ask you “Why did you do that?” or “Why do you think that?” or “Why is that important to you?”, how would you feel?

Like you had to justify yourself? Like you were being belittled? Like I was impugning your judgment, intelligence or character?

That’s exactly how “why” questions make a person feel. It isn’t our intention to make them feel that way, it’s simply an unfortunate product of the emotional baggage the word “why” carries with it. Which means, whenever you ask a prospect a “why” question, you’re making them uncomfortable and causing them to like and trust you less.

Try this instead: Change “why” questions into “what” or “how” questions. For example, you could rephrase the above three questions as follows:
    • “What caused you to do that?”
    • “How did you come to think that way?”
    • “What’s the reason that’s important to you?”

Notice how different these questions seem, even though they’re asking basically the same thing. They don’t sound like a personal attack, the way their previous incarnations do.

When you perform a “why-ectomy” on your probing questions, your prospect will be more comfortable and confident. And the more comfortable and confident they get, the closer they are to buying.

Would you like to achieve breakthrough sales growth this year? There’s one specific thing you can do right now that will dramatically improve your odds of success.

Listen to my appearance on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio with Michele Price as I share this crucial, yet often overlooked, factor in boosting your sales. In this 12-minute segment, you’ll discover:
    • The easiest way to increase your sales
    • How to stay ahead of your competitors
    • The best prospects and where to find them
    • 5 types of goals you need to set
    • How to keep from getting off track
    • And more!

To listen, just click on the link below. Or to download the segment to listen later, right-click the link and select “Save Target As…”

The First Step to Increasing Your Sales, Don Cooper on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio (mp3)

To learn more about Michele Price and listen to her interview other business experts on Breakthrough Business Strategies Radio (which I very strongly recommend), check out her web site: www.WhoIsMichelePrice.com.