Author Archives: Paul Mascetta

The Contrast Trigger

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The contrast trigger shows us that the perception of something changes when it is compared to something else.

This is often why you will see a price tag on a retail item that has been crossed out with a lower price. Imagine walking into a store to buy a pair of jeans that you have been looking for. You have been debating about whether or not you really want to spend the money on another pair of jeans but you’ve convinced yourself that you need them and you’ll probably buy them if you can find them “at the right price”. You find the jeans in your size and look at the price tag which says $79.

You begin to wonder if the $79 is the right price. Now imagine if that same thing had happened again only this time the price tag said $110 slashed down to $79. Now, compared to the $110 price tag, the $79 seems like a good deal but in reality it’s the same price. The only thing that changed was your perception once it was compared to something else. This is the contrast trigger in action. We see this in sales all the time. 

We make a presentation, and when we get to the price point we always set a higher price which becomes discounted down to a lower price so the prospect feels like they are getting a deal.  If I'm selling you something for $50, and I presented it at $50 you will look at that figure and think for a few seconds about what that figure means to you based on previous experience, values and general beliefs.  You will then decide whether or not $50 is - in your opinion - a lot of money. 

But if I presented the product to you and told you that it costs $300, but you could get it for $50, that product instantly appears more valuable to you.  That's how the trigger of contrast works. You take something, compare it to something else and you instantly change the perception of what you are presenting to other people. 

There are several ways to use the contrast trigger.  You can either add more benefits/rewards or reduce the consequences/risks.  All you simply need to do is present the situation in a way that you know the other party will not like and then re-present it again in a manner that seems more beneficial to them. 

As I said before, each one of us perceives things in a different way but we all perceive each thing that we see differently when we compare it to something else.  It is for this reason that a person weighing 200 pounds looks thinner when standing next to someone that weighs 300 pounds but looks heavier when standing next to someone that weighs 175 pounds. This is how the human mind makes comparisons. 

Another way to use the contrast trigger is to create a different frame of reference to shift someone's focus.  What this does is completely change the perspective by which the other party is seeing things.  The best time to apply the contrast trigger in this format is when there is a part of your presentation that you feel may deter the other party. 

For example, if you were selling a car that was due for a tune up at 100,000 miles and the car already had 90,000 miles on it, instead of saying this car will need a tune up in the next 10,000 miles, you can focus on how the car can have 100,000 miles before getting its first tune-up. 

The effectiveness of the contrast trigger (or any trigger for that matter) can also vary greatly because of timing and circumstance. For example, let's say I work for a multilevel marketing company and I was trying to find new recruits.  Let's assume you had some interest in getting involved but you already had a full-time job that demanded a lot of your time. 

In presenting the benefits and rewards that you receive by becoming involved, I would focus on the extra income that you would earn.  You would then decide whether or not it would be worth the extra time that you would have to invest to make that extra income.  But had I made that presentation to you on the same day that you just lost your job, you would see things much differently.

Because of the timing, I can now use the contrast trigger in a way where I am comparing multilevel marketing income as primary income rather than extra income. What this example clearly illustrates is that our ability to behave and make decisions can be greatly impacted at any moment depending on timing and circumstances. 

Therefore, when using the trigger of contrast, make sure that you are always aware of the level of pain, pleasure, reward or consequence as it pertains to the other party.

Keys To A Good First Impression

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“You can’t judge a book by its cover”. “Don’t make assumptions about people”. Do these statements sound familiar to you?

I know they certainly do to me. I’ve heard these and countless other similar sayings about how we shouldn’t judge people until we get to know them throughout my whole life.

Here’s the reality; you, I and every other human being under the sun make all sorts of judgments about people within the first 5 seconds of laying eyes on them.

And here’s what’s even more interesting; we couldn’t stop even if we consciously tried. Wanna know why? Because we’re not doing it consciously. We’re doing it subconsciously.

You see, when you meet someone for the first time, millions of neurons in your brain begin firing and your brain begins the process of categorizing this person. It typically does it by cross-referencing this person with everyone else that you’ve met in the past. And it all happens on a subconscious level.

Once the initial comparison has been made, the brain moves to the category of status placement where it determines if this person has a high or low status in society. This is an important point to remember because both humans and animals seek and are attracted to those that are considered to have higher status and power.

Another category that the brain begins placing people into is based on their physical attractiveness and whether or not they pay attention to their physical appearance.

Ultimately, the brain wants to place the person into a “yes” or “no” category. But sometimes the brain gets mixed signals and experiences conflict when trying to categorize. For example, let’s say you meet someone who dresses really nicely but they have a tattoo on their face or perhaps they are very attractive but their clothes are dirty. This poses a challenge for the brain in terms of categorizing and ultimately leaves you thinking things like “there’s something about this person that I just can’t put my finger on”.

Men and women also decipher first impressions differently.

Men see the body of a woman first and then her face whereas women do the complete opposite.

Truth be told, it takes a huge amount of work to overcome these instant impressions that are formulated in the minds of others. And I know it may seem weird, unfair or politically incorrect that someone would pass judgment on you like that in virtually any situation including a date, job interview or friendship introduction. But the bottom line is that it is in fact happening so the best thing you can do as an effective influencer is prepare for it.

First is your physical appearance. Like it or not, your perceived physical attractiveness will play a crucial role in various aspects of your life so your best bet is to invest in it as it will change the thoughts and desires of everyone you come into contact with.

One of the best ways you can invest in your physical appearance is by keeping your weight down. One of the biggest evaluation factors for people is a small waist on another person. Obesity is very unhealthy and most people are aware of it’s risks like heart disease and cancer.

Since we have been wired to want to build relationships with health people (especially on intimate levels) you can imagine the types of subconscious thoughts that run through someone’s mind when they seem someone who is perceived as unhealthy.

Most researchers agree that body language and physical appearance make up anywhere from 50 – 80 percent communication between 2 people.

Your clothing, glasses, hairstyle, jewelry, coat, shoes and just about everything else about you can dictate the direction of a relationship between you and someone else before you utter one single word.

Here are 3 simple rules to follow to make sure that direction is favorable for you:

1.)    Make sure you are absolutely immaculate when meeting your target for the first time. Get a haircut, dry clean or press your clothes, have facial hair trimmed and smell clean.

2.)    Ask your target how he or she knows when their expectations for value have been met. When they tell you, ask them how they determine the value on that item.

3.)    Pay close attention to your target’s pace of speaking and listening. In most cases, they are identical. Once you’ve indentified both, match them as closely as you can.

The Power Of Questions

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Questions are a critical component in the persuasion process.  And there are a multitude of reasons why.  First off, questions enable you to gain someone's attention. Have you ever noticed that when someone may be talking to you and going on and on and you find yourself in a position where you're extremely bored that you can suddenly stop and begin paying attention the minute someone asks you a question?

The reason why is because questions put your target on the defensive because they have to think of how they will answer your question and that serves two great purposes. 

The first  - which is the one that I just mentioned – is that they gain attention but secondly, is every time your target has to stop and think of how to answer your question, it gives you the opportunity to stop and think about what you're going to do next.  In some cases, that time that you are allotted will enable you to make a decision that can be critical to you gaining the result that you want. 

Questions also give your target the ability to speak, which is one of the key aspects of the way people are wired. People simply love to hear themselves talk. In fact, most of the time they are waiting for you to finish speaking so that they can begin.  Every time you ask a question you open the door for them to speak about themselves and this will create a mood that makes them feel good about themselves. This opens the door to your ability to create rapport.

Questions are also of great way to keep a person engaged.  I have found that one of the best ways to overcome situations where there's an awkward silence is to begin asking the other person questions. Those questions could be about anything but I continue to ask questions every time I feel as though an awkward silent moment may occur and it will instantly break up the monotony.

Questions also help alleviate distractions.  One of the critical rules in the influence process is keeping your target engaged and distractions will work very much against that process taking place. Therefore, it's your responsibility to divert your target’s attention from whateveris  distracting them back to you so that they're engaged.  And you can easily do that with a question that is phrased tactfully enough. 

One of the first things that you learn in sales is to ask questions at the beginning of your presentation because they enable you to get all of the objections out in the open so that you can overcome them initially, or prepare yourself to have to overcome them at a later time during the presentation.

Asking questions also will keep you in the driver seat because every time you ask a question and gain a response, you are in control.

You are evoking action in your target when you get them to answer your questions.

Always make sure you know exactly which questions you plan on asking and why.

Factors Of Failure

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People always ask me "what's the secret to success?" The truth is there are many answers. It really depends on what you want out of life.

Sometimes knowing what NOT to do is just as important. Here are 18 factors that I have identified which will guarentee failure no matter how hard you try:

1. Inability To Control Emotions - Emotions are a part of human existence. All throughout our lives, we will experience emotions that will ultimately make the experience of life interesting. 

When we lose control of certain emotions however, that’s when the problems begin. 

Lack of control over one’s emotions can cause you to make the wrong decisions and isolate yourself from the right people. Both of which can negatively impact any area of your life. 

2. Negative Programming - This occurs when a person’s mind is programmed for failure.  Have you ever heard a person say “if I won the lottery, I would do this”? Without realizing it, these people are programmed for failure. 

Reason being is they obviously want money and they have dreams but they have programmed themselves to believe that the only way for them to obtain the money they need to make those dreams come true is by an extreme stroke of luck like winning the lottery. 

Basically, they relinquish any thought of being capable to have an abundant life by simply putting their mind to it and getting it done. To them, luck is the deciding factor.

Negative programming can manifest itself in many different ways including the way you speak about your life, what you feel is realistic for you to have, what you feel you are capable of or what you deserve. 

Because I’m not an expert in psychology, I can’t say why people become negatively programmed but regardless of what you may think it’s a decision that a person makes. 

Even people who grow up in households with parents that are completely unfit to raise children who have been “doomed from the start” so to speak still choose to be negatively programmed by not taking the action to correct it. 

Your reality is nothing more than your perceived reality. Meaning whatever you choose to believe will become your reality. 

If you have been programmed to fail, you will always fail. Even in situations where you achieve success, you ultimately sabotage that success because failure is what you attract by being negatively programmed. 

3. Bad Timing - Perhaps the most crucial factor in terms of how your actions will play out, timing is indeed everything. 

Good timing is the stuff miracles are made of and bad timing can make all of your hard work, efforts and hope seem like a waste of time. 

I have seen people make inordinate amounts of money because they capitalized on an opportunity at the right time and I have seen relationships between people who love each other deeply shatter and never materialize because the timing wasn’t right. 

Since timing is in many cases, something we cannot control, the only thing you must remember is that things will always balance out.   

Timing will not always be bad or good. It will be a little of both. 

4. Not Taking Accountability - Not taking one-hundred percent accountability for where your life is right now suggests that you lack control over your life. When you send a message to the subconscious like this, the Universe will answer accordingly and ensure that you will never gain control. 

You can choose to have a mind set of control or a mind set of being controlled. Each one will bring forth an extremely different set of results. 

Every time you blame a person, place or thing for your experience, you place yourself in the mind set of being controlled and therefore you will continue to be controlled. 

5. Ineffective Planning - It seems pretty obvious that to achieve a result, you need to plan. The problem is most people have no idea what real planning actually consists of. 

It consists of beginning with the end in mind, having a clear vision of what the desired result looks like and a realistic action plan to achieve that result. 

Writing down your plan is the first step because it brings it from an idea in your mind to something tangible that can take on a life of its own. 

If it’s not written, it’s not real.  

6. Inability To Infleunce Others - You will never achieve anything on your own. No one ever has. To truly succeed you will need the help of others in some way. Whether it is convincing them to invest their time, money, resources or feelings, you will need to persuade them on some level. 

When you can effectively influence others, your life experiences will be magnified on spiritual, emotional, physical, mental and financial levels. 

7. Misinterpretation of Risk - Risk is part of the game. If there was no downside, there would be no balance. You can only gain a reward if there is a chance of consequence. Often times, people don’t understand that and either never take action or act without really understanding what’s at stake for them to lose. 

Risk must be assed; not turned a “blind eye” to. 

8. Failing To Identify Opportunities - A great man once said, success is all about identifying opportunities. You could have all the talent, skill, intellect, passion, desire and drive in the world but if you cannot identify opportunities and capitalize off of them, you will either never achieve success or it will take you an extremely long time to do so. 

The world is filled with opportunities; the only difference between those who are successful from those who are not is that successful people identify them first. 

9. Lack of Awareness - Lack of awareness prevents you from many things with the 2 most important being inability to identify opportunities and not understanding what your strengths and weakness are. 

Without complete awareness of who you are and who those around you are, you’re basically living in the dark and not in reality. 

10. Lack of A Clear Concise Vision - All too many times, people tell you what they want but in reality they have no vision. They say things like they want true love or more money but they either aren’t 100 percent clear on what they want or they do not have a clear vision of the both the outcome and what it would take to get there. 

In the first case, the person is doomed altogether because their wants or desires are vague. You cannot attract something unless you’re clear about it.

In the second case, the vision is not real. You can imagine yourself making $1,000 per hour every of the day of the week all you want but if part of that vision does not include what you will do to get it, it’s nothing more than a fantasy. 

11. Inability To Deal With Others - As stated earlier, to achieve anything great in life, you will need the help of others. That help is not only essential but it will magnify your results tremendously. The better you are at dealing with others, the more your results will be magnified. 

This not only includes the ability to influence and persuade but dealing with others includes avoiding conflict and picking and choosing your battles. If you are combative 100 percent of the time, people will NEVER take you seriously when you need to stand firm on an issue. 

They will just assume you are being combative as usual.

 It also doesn’t help your attractiveness nor have people desire you. 

12. Negative Habits - Habits by definition are acquired behavior patterns that are followed so regularly that they become almost involuntary. It doesn’t take a genius to see the impact that something like this will have on one’s life.

13. Failure To Use Leverage - Leverage makes things easier. Why work hard when you can work smart? 

All too many times people follow a plan simply because others tell them it’s the right way to do things. The only thing that matters is the RESULT. 

If the result can be achieved faster by doing things a little differently than the traditional method, by all means capitalize off of that information. 

14. Inability To Embrace And Adapt To Change - This inability means one cannot grow. If you are not growing you are dying.

Change is a part of life that cannot be avoided. The great thing about change is that it helps you step out of your comfort zone which is crucial to risk taking. 

15. Surrounding Yourself With Negative Energy - Whatever you surround yourself with, you will eventually become. The mind is a powerful thing but it is also extremely susceptible to pollution or contamination from other people. 

Negative energy can easily be transmitted from one person to another as can positive energy. 

Why choose one that can destroy when you can choose one that will strengthen? 

16. Failure To Make And Keep Commitments - Commitments are extremely important and keeping them requires discipline. Discipline - in many cases - is what differentiates someone who succeeds from someone who fails. 

The reason why is simple. All results come from consistent action and discipline is defined as doing the things that HAVE to do that you don’t want to do.

When you’re constantly doing the rights things, your chances of success become greater.  Lack of discipline leads to laziness and inaction; both of which will lead you to failure. 

Additionally, people who cannot keep their commitments are frowned upon by others. 

17. Poor Health - Without good health, nothing else is possible. Why work to create something that you will not live long enough to enjoy? 

It may sound cliché but exercising and the right food intake will not only add years onto your life, the will strengthen your mental abilities causing you to make better decisions. 

18. Failure to Step Out Of Your Comfort Zone - Achieving success is going to involve many things that aren’t going to feel comfortable. In fact, many of them may even be downright terrifying. But that’s what taking it to the next level is all about.

If you remain in a place of comfort at all times, you cannot avoid missing out on some of the wonderful that life has to offer. 

You need to get used to taking chances and looking at things from a different perspective.

The Role Of Time In Persuasion

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The only thing that truly levels the playing field for EVERYONE is time.

Regardless of how rich, poor, educated, gifted, cursed or talented each of us may be, the amount of time in each day remains the same for all of us. It is the only true commodity.

You influence people to make different decisions by changing the perspective of time. Changing one’s perspective of time has an impact on the way they feel and make decisions about things.

Every time you meet someone for the first time they subconsciously cross-reference you with every other person that they have previously met in life.

And the truth of the matter is that they’ve probably had more negative experiences with people than positive ones. Therefore, when you meet someone for the first time, it’s important that you: a.) differentiate yourself from everyone else in their past and b.) move their filter of time to the past, present or future.

People respond emotionally to people, places or things that stimulate them; this includes you. Whether your audience realizes it or not, both positive and negative experiences are being triggered when they meet someone like you for the first time. The ironic thing is that the response that you evoke in your audience doesn’t necessarily have to be directly linked to you. It’s linked to their past experience of someone that reminds them of you.

So before you’ve even uttered one single word to your target, they’ve already formulated a subconscious opinion of you.

Here’s what’s really interesting.

 Even if you completely change the way your target thinks about you because of your powerful influential tactics, they will eventually return to their original opinion of you. This happens for a number of reasons with the first 2 being that they will come across other people who fall into the same category as you who (in their mind) solidify their assumptions as being correct and secondly, opinions don’t just diminish that quickly.

For these reasons, it’s extremely important that you become an expert in altering time in their mind. When you can effectively transition your target mentally from one time frame to another, their past thoughts, emotions or opinions won’t have the same effect on them.

People experience time in 3 ways: past, present and future. Let’s take a closer look at each.

Past: Some people use past experiences as their sole frame of reference when making decisions about the present or the future. They are very skeptical and guarded but they also make fewer mistakes because they think this way. They also sometimes miss out on some of the great things that life has to offer because they rarely take chances. This is an important point to remember.

Present: People who live in the present moment give little though to the past or future and as a result don’t worry or get stressed out much. The downside to their method of making decisions is that they rarely think of consequences and instead seek immediate gratification.

Future: People who live in the future will sacrifice instant gratification for a better result down the road. They are usually detailed planners who love to organize and think things through. To them, the past (whether good or bad) has little relevance; if any at all.

Once you understand how people relate to time, you can equip yourself to influence them adapting to how they see things – or if they are not seeing things your way – you can change their perspective by taking them to another time frame.

For example, if they are hung up on a past failure, show them why the future is different. If they are hesitant about how the decision will affect their future, show them how other people who made similar decisions benefited in the past.

Essentials of Business Persuasion

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Persuasion is a very important part of influence.  And persuasion is ultimately all about a result which is otherwise known as getting your audience to do what you want them to do.

The result of compliance is often dependant on the relationship.

As an example, persuading your friend to go to the restaurant of your choice can be very different from persuading your child to do their homework.

Here are 8 simple steps to persuasion in business settings:

1.)  Identify A Problem – All of our decisions are made to either avoid pain or gain pleasure.  But statistically, people will actually do more to avoid pain than they will to gain pleasure.  If you can identify a problem or more importantly, a desire to avoid a problem by your target, you are well on your way to positioning yourself to persuading them.   

2.)  Identify The Consequence Of The Problem - The Once you've identified the unwanted issue in their life (which could be loss of money, loss of health, weight gain, rising costs, etc.), you now show your target how not taking the action to correct this issue will result in more pain for them.  Ultimately you're selling a solution, but sometimes you can’t do that unless the person knows that they have a problem.  So the first step is showing them their problem. 

3.)  Identify The Chosen Solution – Here, you simply have your target select the outcome that they think will solve their problem.  The best way to do this is by asking questions like “What do you think would fix this?” “What would be the ideal outcome for you?” or “What would you prefer?” 

4.)  Identify The Consequences Of The Solution - It’s very important that your target accepts and understands every aspect of the new outcome and fully supports it .If they don’t, they will blame you the moment things don’t work out as planned (if that happens). 

5.)  Check For Confirmation - Make sure that the chosen outcome is something that your target truly wants.  It will not help if they are not truthful; either to themselves or with you.  Gaining compliance and gaining pacification or two different things.  Make sure your target is not telling you what you want to hear just for the sake of not being combative. 

6.)  Ensure The Solution Is Beneficial - It will never do you any good to provide quick fix solutions or short-term answers to your target’s problems.  Make sure that any solution that you provide will provide long-lasting results.  This will not only make them happy, but will need to more opportunities for you to influence and do more business with them. 

7.)  Reserve Judgment - If the target makes a suggestion or answers a question appropriately, don't pass judgment on them.  Everyone views the world in a different way and sometimes someone's perception might be different than yours; making it hard for you to comprehend why they would have a certain opinion on a particular subject matter.  Invest the time and energy to understand your targets values, beliefs and outlooks on life.  It will not only better equip you to persuade them, but they will take notice to the fact that you have invested in getting to know them.

8.)  Never Correct Your Target - Often times your target may make statements that are false, untrue or downright incorrect.  If you experience a situation where this is happening, it's never a good idea to tell them that they're wrong or try to correct them.  When you do, their defense mechanisms automatically take effect.  Then, instead of listening to you or becoming susceptible to persuasion, they are too busy defending their thoughts and points of view.  This not only makes them difficult to persuade, but it also causes them to question their relationship with you.

Overcoming Procrastination

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Today I want you to think about all of your dreams. Think about everything you want out of life. Think about every goal that you want to achieve.

Now think about the progress you are making in achieving each goal. If you are not where you should be or want to be, ask yourself what is holding you back. 

Chances are you will come up with a hundred different reasons. And many of them – in your mind – will seem justified. In reality however, you’re probably suffering from something called procrastination.

I know, it’s an ugly word. And nobody likes to admit that they procrastinate. But the truth is, most people do and the sooner you realize and accept it, the better. 

When it comes to self improvement, there is never one magical thing that works for everyone. It really all depends on what your strengths and weaknesses are. 

For some people, investing time learning about how to properly set goals is most beneficial. Whereas for others, learning how to better manage time is the best course for action.

One thing is for sure though; there is one thing that can completely halt any chance you have at success. And that one thing is procrastination. 

You see, regardless of what course of action you take to improve yourself and achieve success, if you never actually take action, nothing will happen. It sounds pretty simple yet this is a big problem for many people. 

Some people suffer from something called analysis paralysis where they spends their entire lives analyzing their next move or decision but never actually “do” anything. 

Others suffer from a fear of failure or even success. 

Some people suffer from the dream syndrome where they constantly educate themselves and think that every resource they invest their time and money into will fulfill their dreams. They just keep buying resources because that keeps the dream alive but again, they never actually take action. 

Whatever your reason may be for not taking action, the bottom line is your chances of success are already shattered if you do not change. 

Now no one says change is easy. In fact, sometimes change involves a complete paradigm shift. In other words, you must completely alter the way you see the world. 

For example, your reason for not taking the action to achieve a certain goal may be that it involves time that you simply do not have. Your schedule will not allow you to invest time in anything other than all of the things you are currently involved in…or so you may think. 

You see, we as humans make time for the things which we view as valuable. The level of value attached each activity determines how much time we can dedicate toward that activity. 

When it comes to exercise – which is an invaluable activity – because it brings forth so many benefits physically and emotionally, the biggest reason people have for not working out is not having the time. They say things like “I work 12 hours a day and have an hour and half commute each way to work”.  “There is no way I could get to a gym 3 times per week for an hour each time.”

Ask these same people if they would come to the gym 3 times per week for 1 hour if they were given $500 dollars every time they came and see how fast they would find the time to come. 

It may seem a little funny but what you have is a person who places a higher value on money than they do on their health. For that reason, they will find the time to invest in getting the money. 

When your health is good, it is easy to place a higher value on money. But ask any person on their death bed – who has lost heir health – if any amount of money could compensate for what they are going through. 

Back to my point; you may have countless reasons why you are not taking action. What it really boils down to is that taking action toward achieving a goal just doesn’t have a high enough value attached to it yet; because if it did, you would be getting busy. 

So once again, I want to think about all of your dreams and everything you want out of life. Think about every goal that you want to achieve and think about the progress you are making in achieving each goal.

If you're not making progress, think about what you have to lose. Statistics show that pain is a greater motivator than pleasure; meaning that people generally do more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure.

I guess that's becuase pleasure attainment can be percieved as a luxury and pain avoidance can be viewed as a necessity.

The problem is that often times painful consequences don't come on slowly, they usually just appear out of nowhere in your face leaving you in a state of emergency. Things like disease, job loss, relationship failure, etc. may take time to build up but once they arrive, it usually catches you off guard.

And if you're not prepared, the damage can be immense.

So how do you prepare?

You prepare by ending procrastination and taking action toward achieving financial freedom, investing in a relatiionship (or moving away from a toxic one), changing your bad eating habits or whatever else kind of action will eventually payoff and prevent pain from coming.

Remember, pain isn't always easy to see coming but one it arrives, there's no denying it.

Take action toward your goals TODAY.

How To Increase Your Sales

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I have been in sales for as far back as I can remember. Of our little circle of friends, I was the only one who chose to sell to make a living. Everyone else who had a 9-5 job with a steady paycheck thought Iwas absolutely crazy to choose a career where your paycheck isn’t guaranteed every week. 

I saw things a little differently. I thought it was absurd that people got paid  the same amount of money regardless of how hard working, educated or talented they were. 

I liked the idea that I could control my paycheck. If I needed some extra cash, I knew exactly how many more sales I would have to close. 

Along with that, I knew exactly what I had to do to get that number of sales. I knew my “ratios”. 

Any expert salesperson should be able to know their ratios right off the top of their head. If they can’t, they are surely an amateur salesperson. 

I you are just starting out in sales, you should learn your ratios ASAP or else you are heading for failure.

In sales, the amount of money that you make depends on one thing; and that how many deals you close. 

How many deals you close however, depends on a number of different things like the types of questions you ask, how well you listen to the answer, how you overcome objections and how persistent you are in asking for the sale. 

But aside from all of that, you must know your ratios like the back of your hand and constantly strive to improve them. 

The 3 types of ratios that I’m referring to include: 

The Appointment Ratio – Of the people you speak to, how many of them make an appointment. 

The Show Ratio – Of those who make the appointment, how many actually showed. 

The Close Ratio – Of those who showed, how many made a purchase. 

To truly enhance yourself as a salesperson, it is critical that you document this information, base your goals around these numbers and make improvement where necessary. 

To get on the right rack you must first set some targets. For example, depending on what you are selling and how frequently people buy what you’re selling, set a target amount of people to speak to per day. 

Then, set a target for the amount of people you want to make an appointment with and finally, a target amount of sales. 

As you start your day, document exactly what happens. That will give you a rough idea of what your ratios look like. 

For example, let’s say you are selling life insurance policies. Much of your work involves cold calling lists of people that have at one point or another said they might be interested in purchasing a policy. 

From what you can see, the expert sales people in the office sell roughly 4-5 policy’s a day and the weaker one’s may sell 1-2. 

If you are new to the game and haven’t really identified your strengths and weaknesses, set a conservative goal of 3 sales (right in between the weak and the strong). 

If you have a good sales manager working with you, he or she should be able to tell you what the company averages are in terms of ratios. Then you can see exactly how the strong people are making more money. Are their ratios higher than everyone else’s or or they working harder and talking to more people? 

If your sales manager isn’t sure of what the averages are, you can use the following ratios as a reference: 

The Appointment Ratio – 30% (If you speak to 10 people, 3 will make an appointment) 

The Show Ratio - 50% (If you make an appointment with 10 people, 5 will show) 

The Close Ratio 50% - (If you present to 10 people 5 will buy). 

Based on these ratios, to get 3 sales per day, you would need to contact 40 people per day. Of those 40, 12 would make a appointment, 6 would show and 3 would buy. 

As you put this process in place, you will see what your true ratios are, but it’s a starting point at the very least. 

As time goes on, you will also begin to figure out how many calls you need to make each day to reach 40 people. Perhaps for every 5 calls you make, you speak to one person. This would mean you need to make 200 calls per day. It sounds like a lot but for an 8 hour day, it’s only 25 calls per hour. 

Now remember, once you improve your appointment ratio, you will need to speak to less people to make the same amount of money. Or you could speak to the same amount of people and make more money. 

In either case, you will be in a better position to be successful in sales, once you start learning your ratios and managing your business based on them.

What It Really Takes To Build Wealth

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Ever since I was a little kid, I always wondered how people built wealth.

When I was 22 years old, someone gave me a copy of Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill and it changed my life just as it has for many others.

After reading that masterpiece, I read countless others. But then I decided to take what I read and cross reference it with what I observed in REAL life.

Here are my findings. This will invlove a short (but very true) story about 2 friends of mine and how the path that one took led him to finanical freedeom in only 6 years.

By the way, his advice lead me to finiancial freedeom as well.

Here it is.

In high school, two of my best friends were John and Bill.

John was your typical grade A student. He worked hard, studied, got great grades and never missed a day of school. He was a teacher’s ideal pupil.

Bill on the other hand, hated anything even related to school, work or authority. Sometimes, he would even pay other students lunch money to do his homework.

He was always playing hookie and when he did come to school, he was never on time.

In fact, if I remember correctly in his last year of high school, he may have even taken more days off then he showed up for.

The teachers in school constantly told Bill that he would never amount to anything because he would never get into a good college and therefore, would never get a good job and wind up broke.

After high school, John spent almost his entire adult life continuing his education.

After attending a trade school to learn a skill, he went to a business school to get an Associates Degree, then a Bachelor’s and then his Master’s because his trade school education just wasn't enough.

John spent most of his time working on projects and studying for exams which he always did well on.

Bill took a bit of a different path. He refused to go to college and got a job making $7.50 per hour (plus tips) delivering pizzas while he began figuring out what he was going to do with his life.

Even as a delivery boy, Bill was terrible. He was always late and called out sick almost all the time. He was a lousy employee.

He realized that working for someone else just wasn’t for him and he started a small drop shipping website.

Bill dreaded any kind of mundane or tedious work so he saved whatever money he made from delivering pizzas and used it to outsource the work he didn’t enjoy doing.

In the same 6 years that John spent getting an education so he could get a job; Bill simply hired more and more people to help run his website.

When all was said and done, John and Bill found themselves in 2 completely different places.

John began to realize that he couldn’t even get an interview with his education as all the big companies were looking for people with experience AND education. 

And since he could never get the right kind of job to get the experience because he didn’t have the education, he had to start out at the bottom.

He basically took a job making $40k per year even though he had the credentials for a job making close to $80k.

It didn’t matter. John had to pay his dues and work his way up to hopefully get the $80k he felt he deserved.

Bill on the other hand now had a multi-million dollar company that he ran from his living room table on his laptop computer.

The hardest part of his day was keeping track of everyone he had to pay; so eventually he just hired someone to do that as well.

Now I don’t know about you but as I observed these events taking place, I thought to myself “Doesn’t what’s happened here contradict everything I’ve ever been taught about building wealth?”

I was told things like “You have to work hard, be persistent, never give up, have self discipline, etc.” yet Bill had none of those things and wound up finincially free while John – who had all those attributes and more – was struggling to make in a year what Bill made in one month.

It was at that moment that I knew there was more to the story of building wealth.

And here it is...

Everyone who has learned and practiced what I'm about to tell you has not only created a financial life for themselves that most others dream of but they continue to attract more and more money even if they mess everything else in their life up.

Attaining wealth has nothing to do with what you do physically if you are not equipped mentally.

While you have to take action in order to achieve results, the action by itself will not determine your results. 

It is your state of mind that ultimately drives you to become wealthy. The only time where your actions alone get you more money is when you physically take it by force from someone else (and my guess is you want to become wealthy the right way; not the illegal way). 

Other than that, your mind will ultimately attract wealth to you.

That’s exactly what happened with Bill. Bill’s state of mind was to never work for someone else and never be controlled. And even though in most people’s eyes, he was lazy and always tried to take short-cuts, it didn’t matter. 

When your state of mind is focused on one specific desire, you will always attract results that support that desire. 

Since Bill’s ultimate desire was to be free from control, he attracted the ideas, opportunities and resources that enabled him to become free.

In fact, he didn’t even have a choice. His desire was so strong that he simply couldn’t stop freedom from entering his life even if he tried. 

The Universe was equipping him with what he needed to become truly free from the control of others. 

And in a world where monetary exchange is the main method by which people achieve physical freedom, he had no choice but to become wealthy because wealth = freedom.

This story tells us that whatever your focus your energy and desire on will eventually become your reality.

If you really want to become wealthy, think about how you do it constantly. Eventually you will get the answers you need.

It all begins with your mind set. This is the reason why most poor people who win the lottery wind up broke again while most self made millionaries can lose everything and regain it all.

How To Use Discomfort To Your Advantage

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If you are not completely 100 percent satisfied with the way your life is going or if you feel  like you should be getting more out of life but cannot figure out what exactly is holding you back, it could be that you are not stepping out of your comfort zone.

Many times in life, it is our thoughts that hold us back more than any situation or stroke of bad luck.

Conversely, our thoughts also have the power to take our lives o the greatest heights we can imagine. 

I’m sure you’ve heard what I just said a million times so let me get straight to the ppoint and explain exactly how this works. 

The majority of our thoughts come from past experiences and relationships. Each experience and relationship brings with it a result that is either positive or negative. We then associate that result with the event or relationship. 

If result that occurred was a negative one, we tend to avoid events and relationships which we view as similar.

This certainly is not ground-breaking news. We’ve all either personally experienced or heard of someone who’s past negative experiences are having a negative effect on their current life. 

But have you ever experienced a situation where your success or a positive experience is negatively affecting you today? 

This is a situation that occurs every day in millions of people but they just don’t realize what’s happening. 

“But how could a positive event affect me negatively?” you may be asking. Here’s the answer; it’s preventing you from moving out of your comfort zone. 

While your comfort zone may be comfortable, it’s also not challenging you or enabling you to reach new levels in life. 

Here’s an example. Let’s say you start out in a company in a management position and you have some great people working for you. In fact, your branch outperforms many of the others in the company. Upper level management views you as an asset to the organization and wants to offer you a promotion which consists of managing a bigger branch with more responsibility.

As much as you want to move up in the company, deep down inside you keep referencing the success you’ve at the current branch and feel that it would be impossible to duplicate or live up to in another one. 

You then begin to feel like your reputation for being an effective manager would be ruined if you left the throne where you are currently regarded as a king and failed. 

And so you do nothing. You remain in the same position which is below your skill level and nothing changes. 

Had you moved out of your comfort level and taken the chance, things may have been much better. Sure there’s the risk that you could have failed but that’s part of life. 

While there’s no such thing as a guarantee, chances are that the skills which made you such an effective manager at your first branch combined with your experience would have made just as effective somewhere else.

Isn’t it strange how our successes can sometimes hold us back? But the fact of the mater is that this happens to people every single day.

My suggestion is start getting used to stepping out of your comfort zone. That way, when an opportunity arises, you’ll be able to clearly asses whether it will beneficial for you rather than just talking yourself out of it for the sake of being comfortable.