“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” — Milton Berle

In today’s economic climate, it’s easy to be seduced into the negative thinking that is being bombarded everywhere. But, it doesn’t have to be that way.

What you believe creates your results both past and present. If your currently believe ideas that do not support your success, you must fake it, till you make it.

If you currently don’t appear to be on the path that will create the level of success in the form or way you desire, you must begin to identify the mental programming that is limiting you before you can change your resulting limiting actions.

When you write goals or have thoughts about anything you desire, you must pay close attention to the inner-dialogue that is happening within your mind. When thinking of your goals, if you repeatedly think of the specific reasons of how and why your goal may be hard to obtain, your current mental programming is limited and will not allow you to break through your current barriers to further success. Worse yet, your limited mental images are simply a bad choice based upon wrong information.

Do this…write down the first twenty mental images or messages you heard or were taught about money. If closely examined, most of the images and messages remembered will be limited, negative and fear based.

Those negative messages and images have taken a life of their own and have been accepted in the subconscious as absolute truths. To increase money, you must identify your current limiting messages and rewrite the messages to create new truths that are accepted.

Unfortunately, your subconscious accepts all images and messages without filtering. However, you can overwhelm the negative messages with your own positive messages.

Your conscious mind will choose and react to the strongest messages being given to it. Don’t allow yourself or others to create your destiny based upon limited beliefs.

Your subconscious can act as an automatic responder in a positive form just as it can in a negative. For your conscious mind to react with positive messages you must bombard your mind with positive and repetitive images.

Read and listen to the material that will support you in creating the images you desire, while reducing and eliminating the negative influences you encounter from relatives, co-workers, and the news. You create your own reality. It’s your responsibility to choose the right sources of information to saturate your brain with.

Until you get to the point where you’ve re-programmed your thinking, to be successful, act successful…Fake It Till You Make It!!!

Project success in your mind and with your actions and you’ll see the results in no time.

To Your Success,

Steve
http://www.stevehurstwebsite.com

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Steve Hurst has been working in sales and marketing for over 30 years. For 10 years he had his own computer business which included website building and consulting. The past 5 years he’s owned his own Business & Technology consulting business. Using his sales and marketing skills along with his knowledge of technology, he’s helping his clients increase their sales and profits by utilizing today’s technology.

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All writings here are copyrighted by Steve Hurst. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts.

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I have to admit, this is one of my pet peeves, the lack of using business cards. Too many times I’ve asked someone for a business card and hear “I don’t have one on me…..or they are out in my car” or some other lame excuse. ALWAYS carry business cards, EVEN if you’re not “working.” I have my business cards with me at all times. If I make a quick trip to the grocery store…I grab my cards. You never know when you’ll meet a potential customer.

When you have your business cards printed….print on the back of the cards. If you don’t print on the back, you’re wasting prime advertising space. Offer some kind of enticement for your service or products such as a free report to download from website, dollars off the next purchase…whatever you have to offer.

Pass your card out EVERYWHERE. Here are a couple of suggestions you may not have thought about. When you go out to eat at a restaurant, leave a card. I sign card with something like, “Great meal, wonderful service. Thanks, Steve Hurst”. Now the wait staff can keep this card, they can give it to the owner or manager. Also, include a business card in the envelope when you mail off your bills (especially the local bills, water, gas electric, etc). Someone opens the envelope and sees your card.

In both instances, you don’t care who keeps the card, but it can get passed around and eventually wind up in someone’s hands that needs your service. I’ve done this for years and I can vouch for the fact that it works. I’m not saying you’ll get a swarm of customers…but you will get customers. Keep thinking of innovative ways to use your business cards…they are very inexpensive advertisements….pass them out everywhere.

To Your Success,

Steve
http://www.stevehurstwebsite.com

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Steve Hurst has been working in sales and marketing for over 30 years. For 10 years he had his own computer business which included website building and consulting. The past 5 years he’s owned his own Business & Technology consulting business. Using his sales and marketing skills along with his knowledge of technology, he’s helping his clients increase their sales and profits by utilizing today’s technology.

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All writings here are copyrighted by Steve Hurst. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts.

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Today I thought I would lighten the mood of today’s blog and write about ventriloquism. I got interested in ventriloquism at the age of 14. It was actually one of my younger brothers who saw the ad in a comic book about throwing your voice and sent in the quarter to get the booklet.

Even though at the time he was interested, I’m the one who actually kept pursuing the art. The booklet didn’t really give much information so I was on a quest to find out more. I went to my local library and found a book by ventriloquist Paul Winchell titled, “The Key To Ventriloquism, For Fun and Profit.”

My original copy and still have it today

I devoured that book. Re-checked it out of the library and read it again. Since I could only re-check it out once, I took it back to the library, waited a day, saw it on the shelf and check it out again. Not sure how many times I did this till I was able to order the book and get my own copy.

Later I was lucky enough to borrow the record LP (this was back in the late 60’s early 70’s) by ventriloquist Jimmy Nelson on teaching ventriloquism. Once again I devoured that record listening to it over and over and over again (I can still here Danny O’Day, “the boy bought the basketball, many men make money, please play the piccolo” ).

I would also check out as many books from the library as I could from the library, but as anyone in my age group would know, there were very few books on ventriloquism. Trying to teach yourself how to become a ventriloquist was sometimes a challenge.

Luckily today……all that has changed.

Now with today’s technology, the Internet, mobile devices, people getting schooling and college degrees via online…..it’s only natural that you should be able learn ventriloquism with the latest in advanced technology.

Well you can!

Professional ventriloquist Tom Crowl has the most comprehensive, on-line ventriloquism course ever created. With Tom’s course you will learn the proper techniques from a skilled performer, not an armchair coach.

He uses high definition video to provide close up views and detailed instruction on difficult techniques. There is no guessing – you will understand exactly what is required to master each lesson. You receive 36 lessons that build your skills correctly and this course covers everything from proper breathing and lip control, to puppet manipulation, presentation skills, script writing and staging.

For someone wanting to learn ventriloquism, this course is a must!

PLUS….for those who already know ventriloquism, there is so much information packed into this course that it would be a benefit to you as well.

I have spent hundreds and thousands of dollars on education in one form or another. I’ve been to seminars, bought audios, videos all to further my education. I always thought that no matter what I paid, if I got just ONE GOOD IDEA…..then it was worth it.

So if you already know ventriloquism and may even be performing, I can tell you right now I guarantee that you can get at least one good idea from this course. I did….I have pages of notes from Tom’s course and remember, I’ve been doing ventriloquism since I was 14.

In any other business, to get a professional to show and teach the information that Tom provides would cost hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars. So the investment in Tom’s course is a bargain.

Check out this video that describes the course to you.

Now that you’ve seen the video, go look at the site and take Tom up on his generosity and receive the first five lessons….FREE!

What do you have to lose?

www.SecretsofVentriloquism.com

To Your Success,

Steve
http://www.stevehurstwebsite.com

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Steve Hurst has been working in sales and marketing for over 30 years. For 10 years he had his own computer business which included website building and consulting. The past 5 years he’s owned his own Business & Technology consulting business. Using his sales and marketing skills along with his knowledge of technology, he’s helping his clients increase their sales and profits by utilizing today’s technology.

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All writings here are copyrighted by Steve Hurst. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts.

Like this blog post? Buy me a latte or send me a tip!

Are you making it easy for your customers to buy from you? Or, are you putting up obstacles so it’s difficult and hard to buy your products or services?

Last week’s blog posts I wrote about “making it easier for your customers to buy” (Click here to see post ). Today, I wanted to continue with that thought.

If you haven’t guessed by now customer service is a BIG pet peeve of mine. And bad customer service in ANY form is a way of “making it difficult to spend money” with that particular business. Let me give you my latest example.

A few months ago on a Saturday night, I decided to have pizza. Now as you may or may not know, I live in a very rural area, so delivery is out of the question. I called it in, drove to town to pick it up (about 10 miles), pulled up to the drive through window and gave the person working there my credit card to pay for the pizza.

I’m waiting and waiting and waiting (for almost five minutes) when she comes back to the window to tell me, that she cannot process the credit card, because the other person working with her is on the phone taking a huge order and it’s the same line they use for the credit card machine.
Now to some business owners, this is nothing or no big deal. And quite frankly, that’s the problem. To ME…it’s a VERY BIG DEAL. Let me explain.

This pizza store is not a nationwide chain, but a chain in a 15 or 20 state area. So they are not small. I have to wait because the owner/manager, someone is too cheap to spring for another PHONE line…thereby, making customers inconvenienced if that phone line is being used by having to wait. To me, making customers wait (for no real reason) is BAD customer service.

Before you start to think that I’m an impatient person and should be more thoughtful, that’s not the point (in fact, I was in no hurry, but it’s still bad customer service). I know I’m exaggerating this situation a little, but the point is, this place is making it difficult for customers to spend money with them instead of making it easy for their customers.

I recall at one time hearing a marketer say how he would love to spend MORE money, but businesses keep making it harder and harder for him to do so. Once I really started thinking about this, it’s a true statement. I have found myself in that position many times and I bet you have too.
Have you ever gone to a store of some kind (department, hardware, etc) wanting to buy a particular item and needing some help with the purchase? You know… some information about the product or maybe just where to find the item…..except….you can NOT get anyone to help you? It’s happened to me many times and I’m sure it’s happened to you.

That’s the point. Here you are ready to spend money, but you can’t. The business is making it extremely difficult for you to give them money. How dumb is that????

However, here’s the REAL question, are you making these mistakes?

I would almost bet you anything that the owner/manager of this pizza place has the attitude that the customer should be more patient and understanding. NO….that’s not how it works. It’s not up to the customer to be more understanding; it’s the business’ obligation to make that customer happy. It’s not called, “customer make my business life easier”, it’s called CUSTOMER SERVICE.

Make sure you remove ANY obstacle that keeps your customers from buying your products or services.

To Your Success,

Steve
http://www.stevehurstwebsite.com

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Steve Hurst has been working in sales and marketing for over 30 years. For 10 years he had his own computer business which included website building and consulting. The past 5 years he’s owned his own Business & Technology consulting business. Using his sales and marketing skills along with his knowledge of technology, he’s helping his clients increase their sales and profits by utilizing today’s technology.

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All writings here are copyrighted by Steve Hurst. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts.

Like this blog post? Buy me a latte or send me a tip!

One of the things that I talk about all the time to my coaching clients is the concept of “making it easy for your customers to buy.” On the surface you would think this is a no brainer, however, for some this can be a little difficult to fully understand.

Depending on your business, whether you’re selling products or services, you have a retail business, online business, etc…..this concept can mean different things. When I first bring this up, most of my clients think it has to do with only one particular aspect of their business. Usually they are wrong. Making it easier for your customer to buy can be affected by many aspects of your business that you might not even think about when examining this concept.

Let me give you an example of a situation that you might not think would have anything to do with this concept.

I have a friend who has a retail outlet. His retail outlet is a “duplex”, two businesses in the same building, so they share parking. However, the other business was taking up most of the parking spaces. Not because business was great, but it was the type of business where people would just hang out.

This was causing a problem for my friend’s business. People would drive by, see the parking lot full and not stop to do business with my friend. This went on for quite some time. My friend’s customers would complain about no parking (me included….I was doing business there) till finally he did something about it.

He contacted the landlord of the property and proposed a simple solution, divided up the parking spaces between both businesses. The landlord agreed. So, my friend had parking signs made stating that parking in his designated spaces were for his customers only and put them up.

As a customer, this was great. Now there was plenty of parking for my friend’s business. After the first month, I was talking to my friend and asked out of curiosity, had the new parking arrangement helped his business. He told me he should have done this sooner. I asked why. He stated that in just the first month of the new parking arrangement, he had a 40% increase in his business! Read that again…..40% increase.

What would YOU do with that kind of increase in YOUR business?

In essence, what my friend had done was……”make it easier for his customers to buy”. By creating more parking spaces for HIS customers, they were able to access his business much easier and in turn…it was easier for them to buy his products and services.

Take a look at your business. Are you “making it easier for your customers to buy?” Make sure you’re looking at ALL aspects for your business that affects the customers and how they buy your product or services. You just might be surprised.

To Your Success,

Steve
http://www.stevehurstwebsite.com

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Steve Hurst has been working in sales and marketing for over 30 years. For 10 years he had his own computer business which included website building and consulting. The past 5 years he’s owned his own Business & Technology consulting business. Using his sales and marketing skills along with his knowledge of technology, he’s helping his clients increase their sales and profits by utilizing today’s technology.

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All writings here are copyrighted by Steve Hurst. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts.

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In your day to day life, there are many opportunities. But are you taking advantage of all of them? Or, do you have blinders on and can’t see the opportunities when they present themselves?

You’ve heard it before….”Opportunities are everywhere.” What you have to do is to be able to recognize the opportunity when it presents itself. I’m reminded of a story about Ulysses Grant:

“When I was a boy,” said General Grant, “my mother one morning found herself without butter for breakfast, and sent me to borrow some from a neighbor. Going into the house without knocking, I overheard a letter read from the son of a neighbor, who was then at West Point, stating that he had failed in examination and was coming home. I got the butter, took it home, and, without waiting for breakfast ran to the office of the congressman for our district. ‘Mr. Hamer,’ I said, ‘will you appoint me to West Point?’ ‘No, —- is there, and has three years to serve.’ ‘But suppose he should fail, will you send me?’ Mr. Hamer laughed. ‘If he don’t go through, no use for you to try, Uly.’ ‘Promise me you will give me the chance, Mr. Hamer, anyhow.’ Mr. Hamer promised. The next day the defeated lad came home, and the congressman, laughing at my sharpness, gave me the appointment. Now,” said Grant, “it was my mother’s being without butter that made me general and president.”

Now this is one way to look at this….but in reality….he was mistaken. It was his own shrewdness to see the chance and the promptness to seize it, that made him succeed.

If you want to succeed in your business, you have to be “committed to success” and grab the opportunities in front of you. Millions of others have the same wants, the same demands. You have to be the one to rise above the crowd, take advantage of the opportunities and succeed.

So go out and seize the opportunities that await you.

To Your Success,

Steve
http://www.stevehurstwebsite.com

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Steve Hurst has been working in sales and marketing for over 30 years. For 10 years he had his own computer business which included website building and consulting. The past 5 years he’s owned his own Business & Technology consulting business. Using his sales and marketing skills along with his knowledge of technology, he’s helping his clients increase their sales and profits by utilizing today’s technology.

***********************************************************************

All writings here are copyrighted by Steve Hurst. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts.

Like this blog post? Buy me a latte or send me a tip!

I have a great selling tip for you today, but before I get to it, I need to clear up a situation.

One of the things I hear from time to time from some of my readers (and used to get it from my salespeople when I was a sales manager), is something along the lines of “I tried that selling tip you gave me the other day and it didn’t work.”

My response is usually the same…..”Really, how many customers did you try it on?” And almost always the response I get is “oh, about 3 or 4 customers” (if even that many, lots of times it more like 1 or 2).

Please, grab a hold of this concept……. Selling is a NUMBERS game……. actually…. BUSINESS is a NUBMERS Game!!!

Remember when you were a kid and you tried to ride a bicycle for the first time? Boy, I do. You fell over more than 3 or 4 times trying to ride it, however you kept at it till you were successful at riding the bike.

I recall learning how to juggle. I remember spending about 2 days just constantly throwing those three balls up in the air and trying to juggle, but eventually, I was able to do it. If you play a musical instrument, same thing……constantly practicing till one day you could actually play a tune.

I’m sure you can think of other times and things from your childhood that you were persistent at being a success. Why is as adults we seemed to have lost that persistent nature we had as kids?

Something else we learned as kids that sometimes hold us back as adults, especially in the “business” world and that is, you have to have 100% to be a success. Your grades had to be 100%, so we get in our minds that it HAS to be that way in business.

In business and sales you will very rarely if EVER get 100%……but you know what, that’s OK! You may not even get 50%, but again, it’s ok. All you have to get is …..ENOUGH. Enough to make a profit…which leads us back to….the Numbers Game. .

The more customers you see, the more you use your selling techniques, the more success you will have. You’ve heard me say it before and I’ll say it again, don’t re-invent the wheel, imitate success.

All the fast food chains ask if you want to upsize, biggie size, super size your order. Not everyone says YES…..but you know what….it only takes a few of the customers saying yes to increase their profit. And obviously it’s enough, because they have been doing this concept for years.

And you can do the same thing. Don’t give up after 3 or 4 customers. Keep trying. You’ll soon discover that at the end of the day, you actually did pretty darn well.

To Your Success,

Steve
http://www.stevehurstwebsite.com

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Steve Hurst has been working in sales and marketing for over 30 years. For 10 years he had his own computer business which included website building and consulting. The past 5 years he’s owned his own Business & Technology consulting business. Using his sales and marketing skills along with his knowledge of technology, he’s helping his clients increase their sales and profits by utilizing today’s technology.

***********************************************************************

All writings here are copyrighted by Steve Hurst. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts.

Like this blog post? Buy me a latte or send me a tip!

In an early blog I wrote about the importance of being able to sell. And once you start selling to customers you need to realize what they are really buying. You may think it’s your product or service, but it goes much deeper.

People BUY with emotions and they justify the sale with logic. So, do you know what your customers are really buying? Psychologists tell us that customers only buy one thing…”Good Feelings.”

That’s it! Think about it. You may have to dig a little to understand this concept. Think back to when you bought your last car (vehicle). When you were considering buying it, remember thinking how good if felt to drive, how nice it looked, the “new car” smell, maybe you even thought about bragging to family, friends, or co-workers……these are ALL good feelings.

Then, after you bought the vehicle and you were talking to other people about it, then it was “it gets great gas mileage, I got a good deal on it, it’s practical cause we can haul the kids around, the insurance is cheaper on it”, etc. See how it works?

That’s why when you sell something you sell the “benefits” of what it will do FOR the customer…not the “features”. Too many times salespeople try to sell features.

What’s the difference? Features are what your product or service, have or do…..Benefits are what it does FOR the customer. Your customers like to listen to the radio station, WII FM….What’s In It For Me. Make your message geared to, “What’s In It For Them”.

Focus on the emotions. Because what are good feelings, emotions.

And to stir up the emotions you sell the benefits of your product or service. Think of it this way, Benefits equals Emotions.

Let’s look at an example for a car,”as you sit in the plush driver’s seat, you feel like you are sitting in your favorite recliner at home. You are surrounded by magnificent music as if you are in your own auditorium. You notice the car seems to glide along the highway as you realize you are saving money because this car has great fuel economy.”

Now this is just a small example (maybe a little exaggerated), but doesn’t it sound better than, leather or cloth interior (whatever you pictured in your mind), AM/FM/CD Player, electronic stabilization, twenty-five miles to the gallon. See, you “paint the picture” of the customer enjoying your product or service.

This is why you, Sell the Benefits!

If you have questions or comments, please leave them below.

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Years ago when I had become the top producing salesperson for the company I was working for at the time, the other salespeople would always ask me “my secret” for selling more than anyone else. I would tell them, half joking, half serious and very few if any followed my advice. The ones that did….increased their sales….the ones that didn’t, were just mediocre.

You see the reason for the “mediocre’ sales from the “non-followers”…they didn’t take my advice serious, nor really understood the importance. So, what was this sage advice that I gave them all???

Before I give you the answer, let me tell you how I developed this success principle. In every successful person’s life there is usually a book that had a profound affect on them. For some it’s the classic, “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill, for others it’s “How To Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie….in my case it was “The Magic of Thinking Big” by Dr. David Schwartz (that was over 30 years ago and I still have my copy).

Of course I went on to read all the other “classics” but “The Magic of Thinking Big” was the first for me. I was managing a restaurant at the time and had decided that I wanted to get into sales. Long story short….I did. Since I had been working in the food business in my early years…I decided selling food to restaurants was the place to start.

In starting this “new career”….I was very “green” to say the least. I felt I needed some kind of advantage over my very seasoned veterans of sales that I was selling against. I decided I would be more prepared than my competition.

One way I did this was get up at 4:30am every morning and prepare for the day. My “psychological” reasoning was this….I was awake before any of my competitors so I already had a head start on them.

Over time it worked and I became very successful as a young salesperson. And all this led up to my “sage advice” I would always give to other salespeople…….

“Get your butt out of bed and get on the road before 7am!”

Now before you pass this off as not very serious….this was great advice for “our type of business” at the time. And at the time….the salespeople that were asking me “my secret”…..would drag in at 8am or later.

But there is a deeper meaning here and that meaning is to TAKE ACTION.

When I was getting up early…I was taking ACTION….preparing then going out and seeing my customers before my competitors even got out of bed.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a morning person….a late night person…..what matters is your business and the type of customers and clientele that you have……you must TAKE ACTION to be successful.

I’d be happy to hear your thoughts and comments below.

Please let me know what I can do for you!

Thanks!

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I wish I had a nickel (or maybe $5 for inflation and the price of gas) for every time I’ve heard this statement…

“But I can’t sell.”

Now I hear this from every type of person out there… family members, friends to business people. In my early years when I was “selling on the street” as we called it…I used to sell food products to restaurants.

Time and time again I would hear, “I couldn’t do what you do…I can’t sell.”

I was always shocked by this comment because here the owner (or manager) is depending on customers to BUY their food and they are telling me “they can’t sell”.

Of course then the next comment would be about how bad business has been…well I don’t doubt it…if you can’t sell to your customers you’ll be out of business before long.

Now days I help clients get their business or service on the Internet with websites and marketing and I still hear the “same ole thing…..but I can’t sell.”

The truth of the matter is we are ALL selling everyday. I’ve done meetings and training sessions on sales and one of the first questions I ask is “Who thinks they cannot sell?”

A few hands always go up. Then I ask one of them to explain why they cannot sell. They will proceed to go into this speech about why they think they cannot sell. Once they are finished, I look at them as say, “you’ve just been SELLING me on the fact that YOU cannot sell.”

As I said we are all selling…everyday. In all fairness, when most people make the comment “but I can’t sell”, they usually mean that they don’t think they could make a living selling.

I will admit that part of the problem is the “stereotypical” image of a salesperson. Usually that image is the “shady used car salesperson” which is entirely false. Granted like any “profession” there are bad apples, but by and large most salespeople are very honorable and want to help their prospective customer.

My real concerns are the people who have their own business or service and claim they cannot sell. This is a recipe for disaster. Selling is not that difficult. And if you really believe you cannot sell, then you need to do something about it (feel free to contact me if you want more information).

In future blogs I’ll write more about tips for learning to sell and how important it is in your overall marketing and business or service.

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