The Science of Selling 2004
Most people are never able to acquire success or make enough money; it does not make any difference how much they try. There are a small percentage of people that automatically tap into their subconscious mind without being consciously aware and are utilizing the laws of success. With these few it is no longer theory; they are actually living the laws of success and applying “money consciousness” to the fullest extent. How to Sell a Dead Horse is not the usual how-to sales manual. There is more to success than what you see on the surface. Developing the power of “money consciousness” is part of a four part educational balance of mental habits, physical habits, social habits, and spiritual laws
This manual goes where no other written material on Sales has gone before. In essence some books I have read on the subject have great merit but I’ve realized they have not gone far enough… way deep beyond the surface to explain “how” to actually acquire selling skills. It is fairly easy to say to accomplish that you must do this, but it is not that easy to “do it” when you need to actually learn deeper “how to” strategies which begins with molding your mind in a certain way, starting in childhood, that when you are ready to become a “go-getter,” you will feel an exhilarating powerful can-do attitude towards achievement. Deep strategic knowledge will also endow you with strong self-esteem and thereafter enable you to enrapture your audience in all situations.
Children ought to learn this starting at age thirteen. How mental habits, physical habits, social habits and spiritual laws can work for or against us are key elements to deep strategic knowledge. To become successful in any endeavor, you must learn – first of all – how to conquer your bad habits. Benjamin Franklin said, “If you have something to do tomorrow, do it today.” I can’t agree more. The trouble is that when we are young we consider ourselves to be bullet-proof and we do not see the need to acquire this knowledge. But as a proverb says, knowledge in youth is wisdom in age; you now have this book in your hands. Take advantage of it and squeeze every single page and empty it in your head.
Introduction
The power of your thoughts will create miraculous changes. What are the qualities that lead to success and inner freedom? Why is victory like an obstacle course, with hurdles to be overcome in the race to success? When you have two sales people working the sales floor with the same length of experience, why does one sales person excel over the other? The consensus says that it is attitude that can make a salesperson excel into the twenty percent category of doing the majority of the business. It looks that way on the surface and it is true, but what is the underlying reason? This profound truth is not found in sales training or in how-to sales books. The salesperson that fits into this category has an inherent trait called “money consciousness” that, like gravity, will attract customers, sales and opportunities for prosperity. In comparison, if you want to achieve a high state of consciousness through scientific meditation, you need a qualified Guru. There is absolutely no other way.
A mere teacher who is not in a high state of consciousness cannot teach or impart it to you. In essence, when you go to a teacher you become a student. But, when you go to a qualified Guru, you can become a disciple; and, only then everything will change for you. Some people go from teacher to teacher and far from reaching their goal, they go in circles until they get spiritual indigestion. Clearly, a teacher or instructor who does not have “money consciousness,” can not teach it to you as most of them will not consciously even know what it is. You have to learn this from someone who already has it. I have over thirty years of experience with “money consciousness.” I started when I was a kid. The way to start is through the portals of your subconscious mind.
I will speak more about this further on. First let me get you into the sales category that does the majority of the business. There are many sales books out there and some of them are pretty good and have merit. Most of them are about the same topic on “how to close a sale” but only scratch the surface because few can apply these techniques and make them work. It is very similar to going to a sales seminar and upon leaving the seminar remembering only twenty five percent of what you heard making it difficult to apply the truths it contains. This manual will show you how to instill “money consciousness” into your conscious and subconscious mind. This is the “rule of success” to control your destiny.
As the dynamo is connected to the city lights, so must the dynamo of your subconscious mind be connected to the dynamo of your willpower to form perfect habits for success. Inside this manual is a detailed explanation for the beginner and the experienced professional on how to take control of the sales floor and to literally set the pace for your co-workers. You will discover why most sales tips, ideas, and techniques have little effect on most sales people.
Part One
The Fine Art of Mental Pictures. Part I
There is a force that can discover treasures and uncover hidden riches of which we never envisioned. There is a power that we can call upon to give us all we ever need. You will uncover the value of truthful principles that will work for you if, you too, give them a fair trial. Success does not only depend upon your attitude and capability; it is also dependent on your willpower. The use of mental pictures is a basic tool used by thousands of successful people. Here is a simple way to make this use of mental pictures effective with a minimal investment of time. I consider this to be the most important use of mental energy there is for a sales person. I learned early on the path the importance to incorporate a few minutes of visualization twice daily. Before you drop-off to sleep at night, and when you awake in the morning, are the two most important times of your twenty-four hour time period.
Lift your closed eyes upward without straining them and lock them at the point between the eyebrows. You are going to use your subconscious mind as a tool to make you more money. As you lift your gaze upward you are now entering a new realm where thoughts can become tangible in form. With concentration you can guide the limitless strength of your mind to achieve what you need and to protect every doorway of your mind against failing. The average person can only concentrate on an image for a few seconds before other thoughts pop in, it matters not.
Visualization is imprinting an image on the screen of your subconscious mind and that is all we are doing here. Paint your mental sales desire on the screen of your subconscious mind at the point between the eyebrows, with closed eyes, and see it taking place. What is constantly suggested to your subconscious mind will become real. What we focus our thoughts on we will attract. Learn how to remove your concentration from all matter or things of interference, and to direct it on one object of attention. Now, if your mind is in a negative state it becomes more difficult. Start off with small easy mental pictures repeating them mentally thirty times. Do not doubt if negative thoughts enter your mind during this exercise. It just proves you are normal.
Gently push them away and refocus your thoughts with added strength. Then you will know how to attract at all times what ever you daily need. Planting the seed of success will require the watering of your thought process to nurture the new crop of your desires. The more urgent the desire is the quicker it can transpire. That is what makes the difference between a common laborer and the executive handing down the orders that laborers do. So lets be reminded that the powerful force of your desires are what motivate you. When planting money seeds you must see yourself with the final outcome of your desire, to succeed. For example, huge commission checks in your hand, the house you’ve always wanted or seeing yourself promoted. Imagine small you will attract small. Imagine large and you will attract large.
Do not worry or concern yourself with how the results will come. The inexplicable power of the subconscious mind will make things happen the way you want. All of a sudden you will get help almost like from an invisible friend, from the most surprising and unforeseen sources. However, it is not five minutes or your money back. After planting the money seed, do not unearth it to inspect it, or it will not take root and grow. Do not become disappointed if results are not approaching instantly. When you plant a seed in your garden, you do not go there every hour to see if it is growing. Daily practices of mental watering will make it grow. Think of your mind as a garden and keep it lovely with sweet-smelling heavenly thoughts. This is as simple as that. This thought process will, if so desired, help change you into a better person or the person you want to become.
Once you have a clear picture of a fixed goal, you must drive the mental suggestion or picture deeper into your subconscious mind to quicken the process like hammering a nail into a piece of wood. The first stroke sets the nail in place, but only by repeating the strokes with a mighty force will the nail go into place. This is the same as giving an order to your subconscious mind as you would a soldier who will do what is instructed. Now your subconscious mind will operate on auto-pilot. Continue to hold onto that thought and the day will arrive with the new you.
The more you faithfully sow visually, with intensity, the more reward you will reap. You should tell no man of what you are doing if you do not want to scatter your mental energy. If you do, you will weaken the forces and you will have to start over from the beginning. You can schedule endless activities for yourself throughout the day, and you can take just a few minutes at night to practice these techniques.
Unless, and until you do, you will never know success. Prosperous men and women put forth a good deal of time to deep visualization and concentration. They go deeply inside themselves to find the riches of true answers for their difficulties to meet them head-on with the right solutions. Never leave to what we call chance or luck anything that it is worthwhile to accomplish, and never go mumbling around how unlucky you are. You are where you are now because you put yourself exactly where you are now. If you practice these techniques faithfully you will get definite results.
Luck
Not many people recognize that universal law rules over all actions and decides their effects. The fate of each person is not accidental but concurrent to the effects that we set into motion. All conditions in ones life can be traced back to a particular action. There is no such thing as luck but the notion of “being in the right place at the right time” seems that you are lucky but that is just the pendulum swinging back in your favor as the universe comes to your support when universal laws are all working harmoniously together. But when a misfortune comes your way you say, “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The average person does not understand how the law of cause and effect determines and rules his life. He thinks what happens to him is a matter of destiny or chance. The unsuspecting person thinks that was his good or bad luck. There is no good or bad luck that one has not formed in the past. There is no accidental fate except that which was preordained by one’s own actions. The universal law of karma governs our lives. Cause and effect is what determines the fruits of our actions. This is why it is so hard to change our state of affairs and conditions. What do you do when your achievements or disappointments and failures have been predestined by yourself in the past? The reason for failure to progress in life is that we do not measure the force and power of evil habits that operate against our will.
It is imperative to properly calculate the power of the enemy just to be sure to release the exact amount of force required for successful battle against these habit enemies. The masses of unenlightened people are totally humanoid. People are manipulated by the mind’s computers of past memories which automatically control their life. How do you temporarily turn-off this automatic switch that controls your life? Strength of will and reason has been given to you, use it. Some people just refuse to let themselves be swung back and forth by the pendulum of emotion and moods. It is very difficult for those who allow themselves to be swung backward and forward with these emotions to understand the steadfastness of those who have this state of mental poise.
You will be surprised if you put your strength of will and reason to a test; you will find out how much stronger you really are than your problems. You can smash to smithereens your obstacles and troubles. This is why the right actions coupled with visualization techniques are so important. The harder you work on these techniques and the more you focus your concentration, the luckier you will be and that’s the rule. When failures occur let them arouse determination to act as a stimulant to re-focus your resolve not to make the same errors over and over. It is important to analyze every aspect of the circumstances to guarantee future success. When you do your part, mysterious forces will come to your aid.
“The Battlefield of Life” On the Sales Floor
In order to, safely, go through this jungle of life, you must equip yourself with the proper weapons. Do you realize that Japan is about the size of California, yet so fierce, their soldiers kept us at war for about four years. It is like California going to war with the rest of the United States. One nation was so powerful in its dedication, its courage, and the way they fought. This just reminds me of how weak we are. We have become a peaceful people in the wrong way and we are unwilling to fight. When my friend’s friend fought in Salerno both of his knees were shot out, and seventy five percent of the people there were killed. His entire battalion was wiped out. He was asked what kind of a man survived there.
He said, “Most of the guys who prayed, died. Only those who became living tigers and began to fight for survival made it.” The battlefield of life is no different. It is a ceaseless fight for victory between good and evil. The man who does not know how to protect himself from evil is soon disarmed or killed. There is a lesson here; when you pray you pray and when you fight you fight. The wise person who is armed with all methods of warfare against illness, against the doubter, against karma, against all sinful thoughts and bad habits, become the victor of this great escapade we call life. The tendency of some spiritual people is that everything can be accomplished with prayers.
But in reality, life is a battlefield, a colossal war at all levels. The Hindu calls it “Kurukshetra,” the battlefield of life. It is a ceaseless war of the mind versus the soul for divine supremacy. You and I have to leave this world with our victories and our failures and start all over again. How does the allegorical battle between good and evil and what happened in Salerno apply on the retail sales floor? To be successful on the sales floor you have to learn how to conquer your bad habits and the lesson in Salerno gives you and idea of the attitude you need to have in sales. When you pray you pray and when you fight you fight. That means when you sell you sell and you do not lose your focus.
You are on the sales floor to make money; do not let go of your concentration for a second. Then and only then you are working the sales floor correctly. In summation, those who are highly motivated and actually see themselves being motivated in their visualization can get to this state of “money consciousness.” It depends on your current level of consciousness. I can not promise you that you will get the “Midas touch” right away, but I can assure you your daily needs will be met.
Making Habits when Environment is Stronger than Will Power
Habits shape your future success. When you make a habit you are burning a groove like on a CD-record able in the computer of your subconscious mind. For instance, when you start a new job and you have not yet developed good working habits, you just watch your co-workers and do what they do. Taking hour lunches, frequent breaks, talking on the phone, grouping together and gossiping are optional habits. Maybe your co-workers do not need to make that much money or maybe they do want to make a lot of money and do not know how to.
Or maybe they are just working in sales temporarily to make just enough money to take care of some current need so they opt for these habits, which will not do them any good. New habits will imprint memory grooves in your subconscious mind and you will find yourself acting on them over and over like your co-workers do. You have to stop poor working habits right now! With self-discipline you must impose strict working habits on yourself so they will become subconscious habits for success and you will do them naturally. As with a good habit like brushing your teeth, these habits will govern your day on the sales floor. Your conscious mind believes a repetitive thought is a habit that it cannot remove or get away from.
If you keep repeating the same action over and over it gives power to that new habit and it will burn a habit groove in your subconscious mind. The computer of the mind will play those CD’S of habits time after time just like if you are pressing the repeat button on a CD player. And your own body acts in response to those habits with obsession and compulsion without your permission. You can also compare repetitious habits with the groves on a phonograph record that have recorded your habits with the needle of your subconscious mind playing them over and over. You can change your bad habits or get rid of them because they are your own thoughts being repeated by you. You brought them into existence and you can destroy them and smash them to smithereens with willpower. “Habit enemies” can force you against your will to act against your right behavior. Habits can be formed like dough in a mold. When the dough is wet and soft it is pliable like your mind.
When the dough is heated in the mold, it is set and becomes solid so as with your habits being firmly set with the repetitions of your thoughts. Refuse to feed bad habits by starving them the nourishment of additional wrong actions and with the help of visualization and repeating new good habits over and over, it will add fuel to your willpower, hence your success is assured in the amount of your new found strength. Remember environment is strong but your willpower ought to be stronger to succeed in any endeavor. If you think you lack willpower, the way to develop it is by determination. “I won’t do this” or “I will do this.” Focus your will power on these simple but powerful thoughts daily. Now, I will explain to you the degrees and how willpower works and why it is so important to know how to use it properly to develop good habits.
The principle of polarity explains that the difference between things seemingly diametrically opposed to each other is merely a matter of degrees of vibration; a matter of degrees of mental manifestation; two opposite poles of one thing. Let’s take willpower as an example. Concentrate your attention upon the vibration of your willpower. Is it your willpower always weak or is it strong? A weak willpower is a robotic willpower. A strong willpower is a dynamic willpower. We are born with physiological willpower, which is automatic. This automatic willpower is attached to all five senses and it can become semi-paralyzed by wrong behaviors, wrong decisions, and wrong activities. Automatic willpower is the lesser degree of vibration; the lesser degree of thinking; the opposite pole of dynamic willpower.
But when your thinking is guided by discrimination, it revolves around a definite purpose and your purpose is worthwhile. When your actions bring about good, your will is guided by wisdom. Dynamic willpower is the highest degree of vibration; the highest degree of thinking; the opposite pole of automatic willpower. Dynamic willpower is like a shining jewel. We should all strive to acquire it and wear it for everyone to admire. As most people are carried along the wills and desires of those stronger than themselves and by suggestion and other external causes, greater is the need for you to rise above negative moods, character flaws, and the environment that surround you. Once you learn to put your foot down like a stubborn donkey, and do what is right, you will know you are on the right track.
Bad Habits
Bad habits are like chunks of glass that look like precious stones, but will give disillusionment and dissatisfaction. Achievement is quickened or prolonged by your habits. I am talking about your daily mental habits that have sphere of influence over your daily life. These habits are like glue that attaches everything to it in your person, bad or good. Good habits attract advantages and bad habits attract disadvantages. When you arrive at work, for example, instead of getting down to business you say to yourself, “I need a cup of coffee before I get started and I also have a really important phone call I should make.” Habits like these are not
nothing but distractions. You are just wasting time that could have been well spent on the sales floor and you are robbing yourself from making significant sales which results in smaller pay check and commission.
It is better to get into the habit of having your coffee before work or at lunch time, and make your phone calls at lunch time. Refuse a bad habit by rejecting everything that arouses it. One bad habit I see happen continuously is leaving the sales floor early to go home when business is slow, but it could get busy the moment you leave! If this practice becomes a bad habit, just think how many sales you could lose by doing this over and over. Keep striving until your hard work is met with success. You can be successful or unsuccessful. It all depends on the quality and intensity of your thoughts and the degree of your will power.
If you apply positive thinking together with dynamic will power, you will succeed. Let’s say that you do your visualizing in the morning and as soon as you finish you say to yourself, “I have probably just wasted my time seeing myself making all this money and I am pretty sure this technique is useless.” Or “I just do not have the patience to do all of this; ‘patience is a virtue of the dead.'” Negative thinking is the same as worrying. When you worry you are digging an early grave for yourself. You let anxieties and worries arrange your own death. Why bury yourself alive daily from fear and worry defeating yourself and thus preventing the good that is coming your way. Which shall it be victory or defeat? If you adhere to a positive thought it will become real in form.
Good Habits
Good habits are the treasure troves that will bring permanent happiness. Habits are essential but we abuse their power. If you teach a parrot to talk and sing, it will duplicate what it hears over and over. If you teach it to use bad language, it will repeat profanities again and again upsetting you and others. Weak minded people can descend into bad habits effortlessly. Accordingly, tough-minded people can be taught to make good habits at will. Habits can be made at will by concentration. The technique for destroying habits is by concentrating on the brain cells during meditation or when you are in silence. Concentrate at the third eye or the point between the eyebrows and intensely affirm that all the grooves of bad habits are being erased and destroyed. You should also be more cautious of the kind of company you keep and who you are living with. When you become more advanced spiritually you will notice you are more sensitive, sharp and energetic.
How to Protect your Subconscious Mind from your Mental Environment
There are evil tendencies within the subconscious mind that are like ticking bombs you do not want to reenenrgize. Stronger than willpower is the company you are with, mostly the mental company you entertain with your own thoughts and feelings. Did you know that when you watch horror movies like the “Exorcist” or “Constantine,” the subconscious mind assimilates what you are watching as real? You can attract negativity to you and rekindle those hideous evil thoughts in your subconscious mind. The number one thing most responsible for mental and physical disease is television and movies.
You are unaware of the fantastic programming that takes place in your body cell structure when triggering tendencies of violence from your subconscious mind. How can any human being enjoy seeing murder and violence? You might say to yourself that it is not real because it is just a movie. And, of course, it is directed by a great artist, a great man in filmmaking. How is it murder an art? Is killing people an art? You do not know that the moment you begin to watch movies like that you become receptive and offer the entry of negative forces to you.
We are utterly ignorant of our own functions. All evil has some intelligence for it works itself into the minds of people through false reasoning. Some people told me that when they were watching the movie The Exorcist, they burned a holy candle to protect themselves from any danger. This is what you can call false reasoning. You may follow every natural health law but what do you have in your brain that sees and loves horror movies? Now you can be certain it is not you who is enjoying that fear, but the evil energy in you feeding itself. Whatever evil qualities you have, know that you have implanted them within yourself. Mental fear is a door through which evil tendencies enter into you. Everything in the universe is interlocked by the laws of magnetism and as you begin to have evil thoughts, actions, or feelings you automatically begin to magnetize every cell of your body with destructive energy and attract all the misery into your life.
People get raped, get robbed, get beaten up and get drawn into all types of circumstances which draw them automatically to the laws of magnetism, attraction and repulsion, which is karma. No matter what you do, you will sooner or later be confronted with what we call injustice, jealousy, madness, unfairness and even violence. Now, go up and start reading this chapter again. After reading the first few paragraphs, stop and think about the type of magnetism you might be attracting to yourself due to undiscriminating thinking and actions that might be interfering with your true personal magnetism on the sales floor. You must realize in life that if you want to gradually conquer yourself, you will have to go from physical, mental, emotional and spiritual awareness and once you become spiritual, you will be able to stand against the evil forces, not before.
We are told that within ourselves are those tremendous tendencies of violence. This is why the twentieth century can be called the “universal shock treatment” that has already had two world wars where millions of people have been killed. I often hear people saying, “My mind entertains thoughts that keep me away from work; I cannot stop my thoughts.” False reasoning! It is your internal pessimistic mental condition that sidetracks you from your focus. The majority of people are born on this earth inundated with moods which are leftovers of desires and past bad karma. Why let bad, angry, or sad moods from some forgotten past incarnation come forth to enslave you. All moods are just frozen habits that you have kept repeating over and over for dozens of past incarnations which are now part of your nature.
These unwelcome forces are the rival of discrimination. In short, if you understand the principle of cause and effect, you will realize that you and only you are responsible for your actions. Our greatest duty in this world is to learn to use this principle rightfully. And how do we apply it? Discriminating thinking is a powerful tool, use it. You do not need a highly trained hypnotist to put you in a relaxed state to access the vast storage of your subconscious mind.
With the proper focusing and concentration techniques you can destroy bad habits, create good habits and a successful career and life all by yourself. Take this knowledge to heart and put them into practice daily on the sales floor, in human relations in general, and in your relationship with all creatures of nature. In order for you to understand how to protect your subconscious mind, you must understand how the conscious mind (awaken state) is related to the subconscious mind on which we must concentrate and then reach to destroy or to create new habits.
When you are awake you are only aware of the thought processes in your conscious mind. You speak, you think over your problems and you try to remember things through your conscious mind. But in doing all these things, the unconscious part of your mind which is your subconscious mind, thinks “behind the scenes.” The subconscious mind stores a huge database of information you can reach to solve problems, to change habits or to create a masterpiece. It puts together ideas and plans and runs them by your conscious mind. Any new idea that comes to your conscious mind, you already thought it through unconsciously. On the other hand, the subconscious mind is very susceptible to reprogramming and able to store new information.
Prioritizing your Goals
The techniques you will learn in the upcoming chapters will allow you to take control of the sales floor. Use these techniques to increase your sales volume. You should be on the sales floor for one reason, and one reason only, and that is to make money. This is how to look at your goals. First you want to have a daily and a monthly goal. Do not be afraid of setting them to high. Make sure that when you are visualizing you see yourself easily reaching your daily and monthly goals. Remember, if you set them low, low is what you will get, and if you set them high, high is what you will get. If you are not lazy and you apply the techniques you will soon learn, your success is certain. You want to be actively calm. If you are too hyper on the sales floor, you will make your co-workers nervous and your vibrations will repulse your customers when they sense it. Do not confuse being self-assertive or aggressive with being hyper.
You want to keep your enthusiasm up at all times. Be mindful that if you have the slightest feeling in the beginning of your sales career that you are not very convincing, you can still be successful by making as many sales transactions as possible. Take advantage of the sales floor to make up for your deficiencies with a sheer volume of sales.
Part Two
Walking the Stock Floor For Retail
This chapter partially falls under the time management category. If you faithfully practice this technique you will have an advantage over your co-workers. The very first thing you do when you arrive at work is go to the stock room and visually eyeball your entire inventory. After you glance at the entire stock room section by section, you then look for the products that sell faster than others. You know the products you can make more money with. You must retain in the back of your mind, throughout the day, the items of importance that you have on hand. You must especially remember the items you are sold out of. If you happen to be in the garment or wearing apparel business this means you must not only remember the colors, but most important, the sizes of all big sellers. If you are selling shoes, you must remember styles, sizes, and colors.
Once you start doing this, and you don’t get lazy, this practice will be done and finished in just a few short minutes. Now you are ready to demonstrate your knowledge on the sales floor. This is how I used this technique. When a customer came into the store and asked me for a certain product, I instantly knew if I had the item he asked for, or if it was necessary to show him another product. If I would have told the customer that we did not have the product in stock, he might have said, “Thanks” and walked out. It is important that you have at your command and in your mind, the items of importance in the entire inventory.
You can not spend your valuable time selling an item you have on display and find out you do not have it in stock because you will spend as much time trying to save the sale. Here is when you will try to sell another product or lose the sale. When you know all of this ahead of time and switched your customers to a different product and explained in the beginning that you are showing them a newer or better product, they will not suspect that you do not have it in stock in the first place, and they will regard you as a knowledgeable, thoughtful and sincere sales person.
Here is another way to use this knowledge to turn around a potential lost sale. The customer says, “I want that silver clock you have on display.” You reply, “I do not have it in stock but I have this one that just came in and the features are about the same only they are improved.” Subconsciously the customers know they are talking to someone that knows what is going on, and in most cases, they will come to you for a sale or advice on what to buy. Remember that when you try to switch customers on a product that you do not have, you will get the least amount of resistance if they never knew you did not have it in stock.
Time Management
Managing how you spend your time during the day will help determine how many sales you make. First, you must know what you are not supposed to do on the sales floor. You may notice your co-workers standing around together talking and joking with nothing to do while waiting for customers. They are in a huddle, this means standing around together like a football team. When you come on the sales floor, you first survey the sales floor and look for any free customers. You never drop your attention on making sales happen. Do not fall into the pitfalls of being a mediocre salesman by losing your focus. Remember you are there to make money and you must get into the habit of using every minute productively. Take no more than half-hour for lunch unless you are forced to.
Taking your lunch at a busy time is the wrong time; do not talk on the phone when it’s not necessary; do not remove yourself from the front door where customers come in; do not spend too much time behind the counter and do not take frequent or long brakes. You can not forget even for a moment that you are a commission sales person, and how you spend your time with someone who is “just looking” is essential. Develop strict working habits. With the right frame of mind, you will be much more satisfied making sales and money rather than taking long brakes or misusing your time. This will only distract you from your goal. I often heard many sales people saying, “I know the labor laws. I am entitled to so many brakes during the day.” You can imagine this just made laugh. The more they were off the sales floor, talking on the phone, taking brakes and so on, the more customers I got. Most of these sales people are weak producers, have no fixed goals and are usually transitory in this type of job.
Time Management
Managing how you spend your time during the day will help determine how many sales you make. First, you must know what you are not supposed to do on the sales floor. You may notice your co-workers standing around together talking and joking with nothing to do while waiting for customers. They are in a huddle, this means standing around together like a football team. When you come on the sales floor, you first survey the sales floor and look for any free customers. You never drop your attention on making sales happen. Do not fall into the pitfalls of being a mediocre salesman by losing your focus. Remember you are there to make money and you must get into the habit of using every minute productively.
Take no more than half-hour for lunch unless you are forced to. Taking your lunch at a busy time is the wrong time; do not talk on the phone when it’s not necessary; do not remove yourself from the front door where customers come in; do not spend too much time behind the counter and do not take frequent or long brakes. You can not forget even for a moment that you are a commission sales person, and how you spend your time with someone who is “just looking” is essential. Develop strict working habits. With the right frame of mind, you will be much more satisfied making sales and money rather than taking long brakes or misusing your time. This will only distract you from your goal. I often heard many sales people saying, “I know the labor laws. I am entitled to so many brakes during the day.” You can imagine this just made laugh. The more they were off the sales floor, talking on the phone, taking brakes and so on, the more customers I got. Most of these sales people are weak producers, have no fixed goals and are usually transitory in this type of job.
Steps of the Sale
Greeting your Customers
Attraction and repulsion is a universal law that governs our whole universe. When you meet a new person you can be instantly turned off or repulsed by them. It is much better that there is more of an attraction when you greet a customer and the way to do that is to be a smile millionaire. Greeting the customer correctly is as important as closing the sale. The reason this is so important is that when the customers are real buyers and they do not want to acknowledge this at first, you must make an excellent impression on them so they will come back to you every time. The contagious smile comes first of course. This does take some practice as it is a cardinal rule.
When you greet a customer you must have a real smile; a contagious, million dollar smile on your face until it is second nature. You have to practice this without fail. Even if it means you have to stand in front of a mirror and push up the sides of your mouth every day for a few moments to practice. If you are having a trying day, you do not want to clean the floor with your long face. Learn to smile from the heart. I am not saying that you should always smile like a clown or a Cheshire cat.
That kind of smile doesn’t mean a thing, it is worthless. But a smile that comes from the soul communicates itself in your expression, in your appearance and it is sincere. Do not smile in a motionless, skillful way, when within, your thoughts are on other things. When you fake a smile, there is nothing within you to make the smile genuine. Not many can refuse to accept a person who has a genuine smile when it is mirrored from the heart. In comparison, the designer jeans of today’s styles will not sell in stores unless they are distressed to the point of looking old and almost ragged. Manufacturers are now using lasers to achieve the used look.
When you look at the results, it looks good on the surface but you know it is fake. You do not want your face to look like designer jeans walking the sales floor with a smile so contrived. People can tell when something is fake. I always get the feeling when I see a fake smile that I am being played. This is where your enthusiasm comes in as you must be very upbeat and cheerful. I was taught at a very young age never to say to a customer, “can I help you.” If they wanted help they would call 911. In reality, the hungry salesperson wants to cut to the chase not to waste his precious time. He must then tweak “can I help you” in the correct manner. When I noticed customers walking in very fast as though they were on a mission, I already knew these were the real buyers. I always start off with them by saying, “Hi, what brings you in today?” or “can I get something for you?” I offer to get something when I feel the customer already knows what he or she wants.
Always greet a customer saying hi or hello. Or good morning, good afternoon, a contagious smile and correct body language. Never keep your hands in your pockets or your arms folded in front of you; do not lean or rest on a counter or other object. If the customer says, “I am just looking” you must give him your name and say, “if you have any questions please call me” or “I would appreciate it if you ask for me, I will be right over here.” I tell customers I speak with to ask for me and give them my name. You want to make your customers feel that by asking for you or calling you, they will get excellent service.
When you are very polite, your customers feel comfortable with you and will call you or ask for you every time they come in. This does work because if their first impression is good and they like you, they will ask for you. If you are wearing a name badge, point to it when you give a customer your name, so he can see your name as well as hear it. You must imprint your name in their memory banks. And when they need to call for you later they will have your name on the tip of their tongue. For if they forget your name, you did not make a strong enough impression on them and they can just go to another sales person.
Charisma. “Assembly Required”
Deeply buried within your subconscious mind are multi personalities from past incarnations. That is why most people are laden with moods which are remnants of past personalities. You may not be born with charisma but you may have had plenty of it in past incarnations. You can develop charisma and bring out your past talents by learning what charisma is and how to cultivate it. Charisma is magnetism and magnetism gives some the ability to almost hypnotize customers into buying almost anything, as one of its by-products will make you more convincing when you sell and gives you the ability to influence people. First, if you want to influence people you have to connect with them emotionally and physically. You have to unload your excess baggage of any personal problems or issues that may distract you. When you come to work you must have “sales tunnel vision.”
Second, your silent vibrations are golden when you smile and make eye contact. Third, your magnetism will allow your customers to open themselves to your charisma. Fourth, your speech must be clear and persuasive with just the right amount of measured conviction. If you exaggerate, lie or suffer from talkativeness, the words you say are as useless and ineffective as toy bullets shot from a plastic gun. With words that are always truthful and sincere, they will have just the opposite effect. Fifth, your ability to listen to your customers needs makes you more trustworthy and empathetic in your communication. Very few people realize that you can steal magnetism from others.
The second you look into a persons eyes there is a magnet of energy being exchanged. Shaking hands forms a magnet and the weakest one steals the vibration from the other. You are exchanging these vibrations back and forth without your knowledge. There are many different types of magnetism, so be careful when you shake hands and whom you associate with because if you exchange your vibrations with an evil, immoral, person you will attract their negativity to you. Some types of magnetism are very desirable to have. There is wealth magnetism, mind magnetism, bodily magnetism, and spiritual magnetism. The grandest of them all is spiritual magnetism.
Those who are spiritually magnetized have it all. And the reason for this is that when every cell of your body is spiritually magnetized, you attract the One that gives all. Amplifying the force of your spiritual magnetism will help you in every way possible. Again we see the universal laws of attraction and repulsion working here. Powerful magnets attract from greater distances than magnets that are smaller and weaker. A powerful mental magnet can attract a human being from a great distance, irregardless of the barriers and boundaries.
When you have mental magnetism connected to the heart, borders mean nothing. In order to clothe yourself in garments of magnetism, learn to control yourself, use kind words, positive actions and deeds. And above all, to become a super magnet by transforming yourself, you will have to come within range and associate yourself with spiritual magnetic giants. If you mix with the wrong people, their silent vibrations will affect you in the opposite way. As the monkey loves to imitate, you don’t want to be monkey like by imitating the qualities and mannerisms of others without being able to be real, but blind imitation is better than nothing as long as the standard is high.
Protocol on the Sales Floor
Do not discuss anything personal with your co-workers, especially about your income, home life and personal beliefs. It is fine to discuss general things, such as current events. You will see that when disputes arise your co-workers are not your friends. When you are on the sales floor be aloof and cautious and you must keep your personal life to yourself. If you do this, your co-workers will not try to pry into your personal life. Be evasive but always in a friendly manner. This takes some discipline because some people talk too much. You can be friendly and sociable and talk about general things on your lunch break. This attitude of being cautious also applies to management. The worst of all and the cancer of the retail path is gossip. Each time you criticize anybody you are automatically in tune with that person and you are pulling out the bad karma from him or her. You are taking to yourself the very bad qualities of that person. You have no idea how you are being connected. We are all connected with our brain with fibers of energy and we are one with this creation and we share the good and bad according to how we tune in. The affection for gossiping is the affection for meanness to harm the soul of others.
Even though the criticized is harmed, the one who criticizes is harmed even more. While the unjustly criticized becomes untainted, the evil wrongdoers are fated by the inescapable law of karma and are condemned by their own conscience. They are convicted to live in mental anguish in their own self-inflicted jailhouse. Constructive criticism when not done in a hurtful way is acceptable. People who criticize and gossip are the detective eyes always watching what everybody else is doing. Instead of transforming themselves, they find faults in others. Small minds talk about people all the time; average minds talk about events; great minds talk about ideas, and the wise man doesn’t talk. The wise man learns and does not talk because he knows that no one will understand him. The wise man becomes quiet and silent. He becomes acutely aware of all the motions of life and he never complains. He realizes that all things sub serve a divine purpose. When you stop complaining, wisdom begins to percolate into your being and you begin to understand what is actually happening.
Part Three
What Customers Fear Most
Customers fear the stereotype salesperson that could lie to them. There are some customers that have made mistakes in buying and are afraid of making them again by being talked into buying without completely making up their own mind. Some buyers have been lied to and have had bad experiences from pushy sales people. You do not have to scratch your head and try to figure out what creates fear in buyers. Let me just mention some of the obvious and what is based upon past experiences, and here are some of them: buyers remorse, getting themselves into debt, being a compulsive buyer and having a hard time to say no to a good salesperson.
You need to learn how to disarm your customers fear. First is that wonderful smile I mentioned in past chapters. That smile in itself, if sincere, will reduce the fear. Then you need to establish a rapport by listening to understand their needs. As there is always a but, if If you sense or feel that this sale could be a losing battle, do not waste your time, just go to the next customer or put them on hold and let them look around on their own. If you were not working on a sales floor, there are other options available in overcoming the fundamentals of fear to help your customer in the decision-making process.
Greeting a customer too fast
will cause some customers to automatically respond by saying, “I am just looking.” What this is in reality is a stall tactic. Customers do not like to be jumped on when they first walk into a store therefore they will say almost anything to get rid of an overly aggressive sales person. The only excuse you can have for a fast approach is to beat your competition to the punch. When you are approaching a customer and you are sure no one else can grab them, greet them in a calm leisurely manner so you will not surprise or startle them into saying “I am just looking” or some other stall tactic.
Hesitating when you See a Customer in a Commission Environment
You should never hesitate to greet customers when they walk in your store. It does not matter what they look like, what they are wearing or what their body language is. It only takes a second or two of hesitating to lose a sale to someone else who is quicker than you in their approach to the customer. I can testify that many of my co-workers have lost thousands of dollars to me by momentarily hesitating for a second or two by the appearance of a customer. Their mind quickly tells them that the customer does not have any money to spend or something similar to that in thought and bingo they lose
Being Intimidated by a Customer
Keep in mind that these executive types are mere human beings that have the same faults, weaknesses, worries and fears that are shared by most people. Just picture them as they really are, regular folks, not what they appear to be and the mental threat instantly disappears. When you are selling this should give you a hint when someone puts on an act of being superior or arrogant. Customers who seem intimidating are sometimes the biggest spenders. When you see customers like that do your best to get to them quickly. I have seen insecure men shrink when they see a beautiful woman walk in; hesitating as though they were going to be rejected as if they were asking for a date.
Do not give away your sales because of race or color thinking your co-worker should get the sale because they speak the same language or are of the same color. What you can do if you do not speak their language or can not understand them is ask your co-worker to help you translate without giving up the sale. If you are sure the sale is small in nature and would be a waste of your time, by all means turn that customer over to someone who can speak his language and go to the next customer.
Shopping While on a Cell Phone
When every third or fourth customer walks into your store using a cell phone, what is the best approach to net that customer and get the sale? First, you have to know if they are walking into your store to talk on their cell phone to avoid street noise or if they are real buyers conducting business on the go or just talking to friends. How do you wade through these cell phone users to get to the sale?
Most of your co-workers will be intimidated to approach a customer on a cell phone to avoid interrupting someone’s conversation. With this attitude you will lose many sales because too many customers are walking in using a cell phone. There are several approaches you can use. The first and usually a good one is you play dumb and pretend they are not on the phone. Walk up to them and immediately smile to get their attention and greet them as if they were not using a phone. The buyer will in most cases give you a hand gesture like saying to give him a moment or he is busy on the phone. Or he might put the person he is talking to on hold for a moment and say, “I will be right with you” or “I do need help with a product.”
Sometimes some customers will just turn and walk away from you and continue their conversation in peace. The next approach is to smile with a hand or head gesture and see if they reply back to you. Finally comes the follow them around until they get off the phone. This approach can be a real time waster if the customer came in just to avoid the street noise while talking on the phone. The “follow them around” is the approach your co-workers will use to avoid interrupting their phone conversation.
Qualifying a Customer
Qualifying a customer also falls under time management. I can not stress this enough how important this is. If you do this correctly, it will make your day very rewarding. Imagine greeting a customer on a busy Saturday and this customer leads you on and wasted your time. You will not know this until it is too late unless you qualify your customer first, especially on a busy day. There are many ways of doing this without making you look pushy. A combination of techniques works best. First you notice the body language. Where are his hands? If they are behind his back or in his pockets, he is usually just looking. The one’s who walk or run in fast are usually the real buyers.
You grab them as fast as you can approach them. You will not be the only one that notices this customer rapidly approaching. What you do is keep your eyes on the sidewalk where the customers walk by. This is how you very easily spot approaching customers before they actually walk in. Now, it’s up to you to grab them first. After greeting the customer, they will answer your greeting. This is the most important part of qualifying your customer. Here is when intuition, the small voice that springs up from inside you is at work.
You should get a feeling about the customer. You must first focus on that for a split second as that will be your starting guide. Leaving your post or the spot where you get your prime customers for a customer that walks in asking for a $10 dollar item or getting someone that will waste your time for what ever reason, will cost you money. You do not want to have missed the next customer that walked in that could have been a big spender because you have to have many of them every day to reach your sales goals. Here is an example of what to do when a customer says, “I need a gift.”
The first thing you will say is, “what is the price range?” If he only needs one gift for around twenty five dollars, you would guide him like a pointer for places to look around and give him your name, so if he finds something he will call you. Time allowed with this kind of customer is one or two minutes at the most. Although you would want to treat all customers equally, you are working in a straight commission environment, and at this pace you will end up making poor sales numbers or minimum wage. Here is why. Most customers looking for gifts want to have many different choices.
That means you will spend more time away from where the big spenders come in; you may have to gift wrap, and spend even more time for a small sale. You must know how to sacrifice some small sales to get the big ones. You can not waste any of your precious time on the sales floor with “non buyers” or small sales. The exception is when the customers know what they want and you do not have to spend much time with them at the cash and wrap.
Part Four
Body Language
The beginner who has not yet developed the skills to listen to intuition will not know when to stay away from a customer who wastes his time. Of course, you do not judge a book by its cover, but you can let the law of averages work for you. For example, customers that walk into your store with their hands behind their backs, customers with their hands in their pockets, and customers with their arms folded in front of themselves, in most cases, are the customers that will waste your time. Because of the exception to the rule, you do not want to take any chances. Approach the customer with a big smile; give him your name and ask him to call you for any questions. You must make a good, quick impression on your customer before you leave. Proceed to the next customer always keeping him in the corner of your eye and sometimes checking back with him to remind him to call or ask for you just in case he wants to buy something.
What you want to accomplish by going back and forth is to make him feel compelled to ask for you when there are other sales people around. If the customer is a buyer and you read him wrong, you do not want to lose the sale to another sales person. When a female customer walks in and you notice that she does not have a purse or back-pack and you do not see a wallet in her pocket, in most cases you have someone “just looking.” Just in case she has cash or a credit card in her pocket, you greet her and give your name as you would any other customer. Many books have been written about body language and say that most body movements and facial expressions are clues to how the customer reacts to your sales presentation. Some people are not that smart to read every facial expression and they do not know that most body movements are unrelated to the sales presentation. But it is true that when someone scratches their chin or nose, their chin or nose does itch and it is not a clue to read between the lines.
Answering Objections
Listen without interruption and listen to the whole objection without cutting your customer off or they will think you are not listening to them. If the objection is about getting a better price or product from your competitor, knowing about your competitors products is very important as it establishes you as being a product expert. It also builds a rapport similar to a teacher with a student, or a parent with a child. Now you may be turning an objection into a sale by gaining their confidence. Know your product inside out, especially the ones you sell all the time. If you are asked a question about a product and you sidestep or do not know the answer, the customer immediately loses confidence in you.
Remember, do not lie or knock your competitors’ products. You want to establish that there is no comparison between stores or products. But what do you do when your competitors’ price is less. You price match or lower your price just a little to save the sale and win a customer. The exception to this rule of price matching is that you do not price match with a membership store or the Internet. Explain to your customer that buying on the Internet can be risky because if he is not happy with the product, it can be difficult to return the item and get his money back. Shipping back and forth can also get expensive. Make sure customers understand that when buying at a membership store they will get poor customer service or none at all and when making a return, they will have to stand in long lines. Assure them that you will make their buying experience a breeze and that they will have better customer service and problem free returns.
Handling Objections
If you want to amaze your co-workers and your boss, this is what you have to learn. First is product knowledge, product knowledge and your competitor’s product knowledge. All customers want to know the same thing.
Does it work?
Is it the best available?
Can I get it cheaper someplace else?
Should I wait for a newer version to come out?
How long will it last?
An objection coming from a customer is not really an objection, it is only a question. Listen without interruption and be spontaneous and sincere in your answer to gain the trust of your customer. To be spontaneous you must have product knowledge and to be sincere you must have character. You always want to be as brief as possible answering objections in selling. You never want to be too wordy or too technical. Customers are not interested in bits and bites. Get to the point in the proper manner and you will close your sales faster. You will also be able to go on to the next customer and that is proper time management. Practice this without fail and you will soon realize that turning an objection into a sale is very satisfying.
Handling Returns
When you must handle a return from a customer, you want to make your customer feel you are doing him a favor. The first thing you do is take the product out of their hands making it now your problem and not theirs. Tell them you are so sorry that they had a problem with the product and try to save the sale by doing an exchange instead of a return. If the return is questionable and you want to keep the customer, explain that you are stretching the rules by taking back a product beyond the return policy. They may feel guilty and exchange it and buy more. Turn a return into a sale. Whenever possible make customers feel that by going to you, you will give them better customer service.
How to Avoid Returns
The norm is to close the sale as quickly as possible and get your customer in and out so you can go on to the next sale. When you sell a product that is not a gift for someone other than the buyer and the product is in electronic or gadget category, take an extra minute or two to make sure the customer has a basic understanding of how to work or use the product. When the customer is an older person who may not be good at reading or understanding technical instructions, you are leaving yourself open for a return. If you did not explain the operation or give any instructions in simple English, chances are that if he has any trouble using the product and becomes frustrated with it, he will return it to you and bye-bye commission.
Product knowledge comes into play here when you are doing your presentation as you can simply insert instructions when you are demonstrating the product. During your demo of the product, you also mention the ease of use as part of your presentation. Now the customer will wind up understanding how to work the product and thus avoid a return. The only exception to this rule is that you do not waste your time on small commission items.
Part Five
Treating your Customers like Children
As you become more proficient at being convincing, the next step is turning your technique around and treat some of your customers like children. How do you know when to do this? It is simple. When customers are under control or hypnotized by your charisma, you lead them around as if they were kids. You will say things like, come with me. You want to see this, it is so cool. Or try this on. What you are doing here is simple and easy once you get into the hang of it. It is taking control of the sale at the beginning and keeping it during the whole sale. You lead and they follow, but you must make it fun for them by keeping the environment very upbeat, smiling, and showing a lot of enthusiasm. Caution and intuition does come into play here as you will sense that you can not use this technique with everyone. Some customers might not respond favorably. I often mix my techniques together as they all come natural with me. If you have one-ounce of natural talent you can make these techniques work and make them work well. Remember it does not matter how many times you fail in the beginning; always try once more. The harder you work, and the harder you try, the luckier you will become.
Training your Customers
What you want to project to the customer is the image or perception that working with you will always be fun and uplifting. I have trained many of my good customers to only come into the store when I was there. At the closing of each sale, you start off by repeating your days off and never to come in on those days. You also write it on the back of your business card and give it to all good customers. Most important you must remind your customers that if they come into the store and do not see you, it does not mean you are not there, and that they should always ask for you; you could just be in the back room for a moment.
Treating your Customers like Friends
Respect your customers, but not to the point to make yourself seem too stiff. Talk to your customers in a very relaxed manner, like friends even dear friends. The friendlier and more helpful you are the more trusting the customer will become. The end result will be more sales for you.
Keep it Simple Using Laymen Terms
While making your presentation, say just enough to open and close the sale. Talking too much causes indecision, and when you start wasting customers time they will start looking at their watch and thinking about their next stop. If you get carried away in conversation with your customer, you better have a very good reason for it. Time management is always into play. I only take extra time with customers for a good reason and the main reason is to make a lasting impression for the customer to remember me so he will come back to me next time. I always ask top buyers what they do as some can become great contacts for the future. But when the customer is taking too much time, you must excuse yourself to go to the next customer.
After Closing Every Sale
When you are just beginning your sales career, follow these instructions. When the customer decides to buy a product and says, “I will take it” stop talking right there. If the product you are selling does not require anything added on, get the product to the cashier. When the customer is checking out and you are ringing up the sale never repeat to the customer how much money he is spending because it can cause buyers remorse. The only exceptions are when they are paying by cash or check. Here you have to repeat the amount of the purchase.
Selling After Closing a Sale
During the process of ringing up your sales remind your customers about other products they may have overlooked or other items to add on. You just keep on selling until they are ready to leave unless you want to get rid of them. If you have a cashier ringing up your sales make sure he tries to add on to the sale for you.
Part Six
How to Properly Thank your Customers
This is the time when you want to make your customers feel important. Put on your million dollar smile, look them in the eyes and thank them while shaking their hands when appropriate. Make sure after you have thanked them you give them your business card while you remind them about which days you have off and to not come in on those days. If you are in a position to send out thank your cards to your customers, do it as this really works well to help keep your customers loyal to you.
Being Aware of your Surroundings
To be a high achiever you need to be watchful of every other customer while you are helping another. You must have the choice to move on to another customer or to try to keep them both as your own customers. Doing this often will cause some problems. But if you can make this technique work for you, this is how you can make a lot of money selling. Some customers will not like it when you leave them, especially, if you get involved with a large sale and you can not get back to them soon enough. You can lose that first sale, but believe me, it is worth it.
Being Aware of your Co-Workers
You must know where your co-workers are when you are on the sales floor. When a customer enters your store, you approach your customer in a relaxed manner or as you should if you are alone. But, your moves should be altogether different when you know a co-worker is standing behind you at the moment the customer walked in because he or she can quickly walk around you and beat you to the customer. I have seen this happen constantly in a commission environment. If you work in a store where it is a “free for all” and the most self-assertive sales person wins, then you better start keeping tabs on everyone around you when you are on the sales floor.
How to Protect your Sale
If you are working in a busy store with many other sales people you do not want your sale to be accidentally stolen from you. You always want the product you sell rung up under your name and not stolen by someone else when your product is left at the cash and wrap. How do you protect your product from being rung up by a cashier who may say, “Who does this sale belong to?” Or when the customer needs to be rung up and you are not around because you are helping someone else. Your competitor may just take it from you and ring it up under his own sales code. Here is what you do. Take your business card and attach it or set it on the product at the cash and wrap where everyone can see it. , then there is no mistakes on whom the sale belongs to. This must become a habit like brushing your teeth; you must do this with every sale and there will be no confusion on who gets the sale.
Show and Sell
When you get a buyer, suggest, show and sell, but have excitement in your voice when you show a new product. For example if you are showing a lady an expensive pair of shoes hold the shoe in your right hand with the front tip of the shoe resting on your left palm as if you were holding and showing jewels. Never be rough when showing products as if they were trash and tinsel. Show you care about the products as much as you care about the customer. Now, here is how you show a product they did not come in for. There is a special technique that is simple and that is to have a new product in your hand when customers come in. This will create interest when they see you playing with it. Now it is time to show and sell.
Controlling the Sales Floor
This is my favorite sales technique and the most difficult. It is also the most rewarding. As you master this, you will become very unpopular with your co-workers. Controlling the sales floor is the same as juggling. When you get one customer, you should develop a good quick rapport with him or her. As soon as you see another customer walking in and your present customer is looking and not buying, you should quickly excuse yourself from your customer and tell him you will be right back making sure he knows your name for when he is approached by another sales person, he will say that he has being helped by you. Or you can say, “Will you excuse me for a moment, I will be right back.”
You run to the next customer who may be coming in with a large order. Lock him up so when you leave him for a moment to go back to the other customer, he will be yours and he will wait for you. When other sales people approach him, he will say you are helping him. For example, when I opened my first retail store, there were many occasions when I was by myself in the store and when it got busy I had to take care of every customer at the same time. I become very good at helping many customers at one time while giving them the best customer service possible.
I developed a wonderful habit waiting on all these customers at once. Not only did I make a lot of money doing this, my payroll was kept at a profitable level. Do not look at this example as multi-tasking; you look at it as a rewarding technique of making much more money than you thought possible. This technique does take some practice. If you are not seasoned at it, you will make customers feel that they are getting poor customer service; you will lose sales and upset your supervisors. If you learn this art of juggling customers, you will be walking a fine line of being accused of taking up other sales people’s customers.
This art has always been taken as something personal or something that it is done deviously to other people who share the sales floor with you. It looks this way on the surface, but what it is in reality is that salespeople working the sales floor in a commission environment, in time, learn this technique which with years of practice then becomes instinctive. The beginner does not understand the dynamics of this instinctive behavior. The typical behavior of co-workers who share the sales floor with a high-energy performer is that some retreat, some become hostile and at some point they seek revenge by creating problems. They need to understand their behavior is actually creating a wall of “negative energies” around themselves resulting in the exact opposite effect. Keep in mind that if you stay on the path to becoming a professional salesman, you will soon agree that being able to handle several customers at once is a vital skill to learn
if you aspire to reach excellence and professionalism in selling.
Part Seven
How to Connect with your Customers
In retail sales one on one there is not always time to read a customer’s personality type when a new customer walks into your store. Knowing personality types can be very useful but not at first. The most vital trait of a top salesman is the ability to connect with people emotionally. To do this, the first thing you do when a customer walks in is you sense his or her mood. Knowing your customer’s mood at this time will enable you to connect with your customer emotionally. By asking certain key questions like, “how is your day going” or “how was the traffic?”
You can then sense what their mood is. These kinds of questions or any other similar that appeals to emotions is fine. For example, when a woman walks in and you see she is wearing all sorts of jewelry, you know she likes jewelry, so you could say something like, “oh, those earrings look great on you.” Or “that color you are wearing looks terrific on you; I never liked that color much.” When your customer is a man you could ask him where he bought the tie, the suit or the shirt he is wearing. You could ask him where he bought those sunglasses and so on.
By now, you should know what kind of a mood your customer is in. Moods are emotions and at this point all you are doing is identifying emotions as connecting with others is about putting head and heart working together. For instance, managers who apply pure technical skills are just in charge, they do not manage; but, managers who add “understanding” and “emotions” may enhance their management styles and skills. People try to read and respond to our body language and facial expressions often on a subconscious level. They are also trying to sense whether we really care about them or not. In short, when you are with a customer let your mental focus be on enjoying what you are doing; bring your product presentation to life with head and heart working together.
Asking for the Sale
Asking for the sale can only save you time. When is the proper time to ask? When your customer has a poker face and you feel you have put in enough time you have to always ask for the sale. On small sales you have to ask for the sale right away. There are many ways in doing this. If you have any fear that the customer will say no, you can say, “Is this what you were looking for?” This is a way to lead into asking for the sale and to see what objections may pop up. Another wonderful way is to say to a customer, “Before we get carried away would you like me to see if this product is even in stock?” Here you are cutting to the chase and qualifying your customer at the same time.
Closing your Sale
Asking for the sale is a good time management tool when you ask for it at the proper time. Most sales people have a small fear of rejection asking for the sale but in doing so at the proper time give you other options besides saving you time. Always ask for the sale when you are selling an inexpensive item; you do not wait for them to buy as this could be a real waste of time when dealing with small or inexpensive items. If you get a no, all your options are now open to you for what you can do next. You can put your customer on hold by saying, “think it over for a few moments and I will come right back to you.” In the meantime look around for more customers. Do not let the sales floor manipulate you; you have to learn how to manipulate the sales floor. You can apply this closing as a last resort, “take the product home for 30 or 60 days and try it and if you change your mind just bring it in and get your money back.” It is not good opening the door for returns but if you need the sale go ahead and do that. There are customers that abuse return policies and play the system. This is why you must use this closing only as a last resort, as mentioned above.
The Art of Closing without Closing
Let your customer close for you as this can help avoid buyer’s remorse and have less returns. Every sales manager of every company will tell you to always ask for the sale. Convince your customers to say, “I will take it” and he has closed the sale. This translates into less buyer’s remorse and less returns. Too much high pressure causes a higher return rate. Of course you do not want to wait until the cows come home for your customer to say “I will take it.” What you ought to do is make your presentation short and to the point if you do have a buyer.
This works most of the time. Sometimes when you ask for the sale and the clients are not ready they just say “no” or give you some excuse and this is what you do not want to happen. Hearing objections or more questions is fine but time consuming. And when you learn time management you will understand that spending too much time with a customer can really cost you in so many ways. When you are helping someone who is taking too much time and you see a free customer looking at something expensive, excuse yourself for a minute by saying, “I will be right back.” Walk over to the free customer and quickly sell something to him then walk back to work with the other. If you do it correctly, you will end up selling both customers.
A Pushy Close
A pushy close will promote that sinking feeling of fear in your customers’ stomach. This will cause buyers remorse and a higher rate of returns.
When your Customer Says “No”
When your customers tell you that they have to run it by their other- half or their significant other, they are either not sold or they are slow at making decisions. At this point you can let them go or you can re-energize the sale by going over the main points of the product in a different way and convince them to buy. Do this if you feel that giving them a little extra time will be worth it. Not taking “no” for an answer also falls into time management.
The no-deaf close
You could get caught up spending too much time with the customer, but if your intuition tells you to keep going, then by all means use this close. Some customers use “no” as a stall tactic to give themselves more time to think and not be pressured into buying until they are ready. When this happens re-energize your sale with a different close as many times as necessary depending on the possible worth of the sale to be made.
Chapter Eight
The Importance of Buying now Close
When your store has a promotion or a sale in progress you can increase your sales by creating a feeling of urgency. Bring to your buyer’s attention that the store has a “limited time” promotion and that they should buy now before the price is raised. But that alone is not enough to make your customers buy. Let them get the feeling of urgency to buy now by giving them important reasons to buy right now. You can give them many reasons depending on the type of products you are selling. The sale ends tomorrow, supplies are depleted and we are almost out of stock, this is the most important sale in our company’s history and you should take advantage of it now. Make sure you also focus on how important and wonderful are the products to close this sale.
Buying Signs to Look for
When customers are ready to buy, you should be aware of their body language and vocal signals. When you notice these signals you close the sale at once. Some of the vocal signs are. Do you have it in stock? Are there any other colors available? Do you gift wrap? Or they move their head up and down as if to say yes. When you notice these signals stop your presentation and go for the close.
Closing with a Question
If you are trying to sell a CD player ask your customer to take a set of CD’S to go with his new player. You do this even before the customer has agreed to take the CD player. You can also use the assumptive close to sell accessories. Get this case and memory card to go with your new camera. Take the foot massager to go with your new massage chair. Do you want batteries to go with your new clock? This is said before the customer has agreed to anything.
“It is a Mistake not to Buy” Close
When you use this close you are not making your customer feel guilty you are making him think carefully. For example, when you are trying to sell an air filter and you found out that the customer’s child has asthma and his wife has bad allergies. Tell your customer that it is mistake not to try the air filter when their family’s health is at stake. This close is wonderful to use when you are selling items on sale. Tell customers that supplies on this product are very limited and they should buy it now not to miss the sale price. And don’t forget to tell them to take it home and to bring it back if they change their mind later.
Guiding your Customers to Sell Themselves
Try this when you notice a customer knows what he wants. Some customers tell you why they buy a specific product and even go on to explain how it will benefit them. This is just wonderful. They become the best supporter or sponsor for your product. You might notice other customers hear them bragging about the product and they too decide to buy the product.
The “Give and Take” Close
When you use this close remember it is the same as finding the middle ground or giving a concession. Your customer has not made up his mind so you compromise by saying “just take the camera today and think it over about the extended service plan, the memory card and the carrying case.” Or “just take one of the air filters today for your bedroom and come back for the second one for your living room if you are satisfied with the first one.” It is always better to compromise than going for broke or the “all or nothing closes.”
The “Guilt Trip” Close
This works well when parents comes in with their children and are looking at something expensive. While you are showing them a high end camera you noticed the child loves it. Make sure the parents hear you say, “You are so lucky to have such a caring, generous parent.” And from this point on, work the sales up to the close.
The “Celebrity Name Drop” Close
Name dropping can work well for you if you use it before you close the sale. You can casually mention that you have sold these items to certain famous people and sometimes you pull up their names on the computer and show it to the customer at hand. Most sales people will not be able to use this close because they will not have the backup to do it, but can use this close in a smaller way as long as it does not sound like you are lying. You may not be in a store that has a lot of celebrities coming in but you may have other important personalities that do frequent your store and you can use them as examples.
Chapter Nine
Selling “by Price Alone” Close
Selling by price alone is not recommended because if your product is more expensive than your competitors, you have to plant the seed of doubt about your competitor. If they have the same or similar product, you explain why buying from you is so much better in many ways. Our customer service, for example, is so much better when you have a problem with the product. We offer a “no hassle” return or exchange, a longer return policy, no waiting in return lines, a much better guarantee on the product and our product is of higher quality. Even by spending less on the same or similar product is not always the wise thing to do and that is the truth in this close.
The “One-of-a-Kind” Close
If your customer is a gadget person your customer is playing right into your hands. These are the types of customers that “have to have it first before anybody else.” You show the new product and you tell your customer that it is the greatest product in the store and that he must have it. That’s all you need to say. Some customers do not want to miss out to be the first one to own the product and jump to buy it. And some customers who are less enthusiastic about your new product will need some convincing. Honesty in selling your product is very important.
The “Challenge the Customer” Close
You can put your customer on the defensive to buy by challenging them. Why not get the cheaper camera this one may be too much camera for you even though it has all the features you really like. Ego and greed can play into this close. People want what they can not have. You must show the worth of the more expensive item and make them want it and then suggest to them to consider buying the cheaper model. Using reverse psychology makes this close work.
Qualifying and Closing at the Same Time
When it is still up in the air that you have a buyer this is one of my favorite techniques. When the customer shows some interest in a product you tell the customer that this product is a hot seller and that you might be sold out of it, but if he wants to know if it is in stock, you will go and look. If the customer says yes, you do not want to waste your time when you know you do not have it. Ask your customer if he wants you to bring one back with you. If he says yes, you have a sale. If he says no, you have qualified him as a looker. Now proceed to ask him for the sale.
Offering Discounts to Close a Sale
Some teachers will instruct or tell you that you must make your customer feel important. I have no problem with that. But that alone, will not guarantee you a sale. But I can guarantee you a sale when you offer a customer a deal through an unauthorized or expired discount. Everybody likes a discount, a deal or a free gift. It is up to you to come up with ways of doing this. But selling by price alone does not always work. A lot of stores offer coupons in newspapers or magazines. Keeping some of these coupons yourself and then offering them to the customer is one way, if permitted by management. This is the best way to build your clientele because people love to save money.
Of course, make sure your management knows what you are doing. This combined with excellent customer service will not only win you a loyal customer but a friend. Now, when you do not have deals to offer, think of creative ways to make your sales presentations. Here is a good example to use on the sales floor. When you are busy and see other customers coming in, you can not leave your present customer for more than a minute. Excuse yourself for a moment; go to the new customer and say, “if you wait for me, I have some special offers for you.” This new customer will patiently wait for you and when somebody else on the sales floor offer to help, he will say that you are helping him and will wait for you. You better have a promotion or some discount to offer when you come back to this customer. It is up to you to figure out what kind of a deal you have to offer. You could say, for example, “I can extend these ‘on sale’ items for you that are no longer available.”
Work it out with your management what items are still available at a discount. If these promotions are not possible, find other ways to be creative in offering deals to your customers. When you get good at doing this you will know when to use this technique. It is always best to use it with expensive items. Your goal is to get as many customers lined up waiting for you. Never, ever lie to your customers. If you do it, it will come back to haunt you and the universe will not come to your rescue. This is just one of many techniques to put in your ammunition belt keeping as many bullets of techniques as possible.
Last Resort to Close a Sale
If you have a customer who is procrastinating to make a large purchase, and I mean a large purchase, you will have to make a choice in letting the customer make up their mind to buy or walk. If you do not want to lose the sale, and it is acceptable, you can offer a “one time only” offer.” If you make this purchase today, I will give you my employee discount on any item in the store.” Now, if the customer is really interested in making a large purchase, this offer should help you close the sale as long as you have management’s approval.
Part Ten
Upgrading your Customers
Upgrading causes indecision, period. But you should always do it when you can. Here is an example. A customer comes into your store. Very quickly you greet the customer and realize that he came into the store to buy. “Give me three of these cameras”, he says. Great, you think you have a sure sale on three cameras but you spontaneously say to your customer, “in case you did not notice, we just received a newer camera with lots of new features that the ones you wanted do not have.” Your customer replies, “oh really, is it more expensive?” And you say, “Yes it is.” Then your customer goes on to tell you that he will have to call his boss to tell him about the new camera and ask you for a literature to show it to him. You see, here you have just lost a sale trying to upgrade. You did not know the facts of this sale so you blew it. Here is how you do it.
The customer comes in for the three cameras and, instead of trying to upgrade, you add-on accessories, cases, memory cards. By adding on you are feeling out your customer. If there are any objections, you will find out this way. It is safe to try to upgrade when there is little or no risk especially on less expensive items. Now, if you have the customer under control, that is when you do your thing and upgrade. One of the biggest obstacles in upgrading is the customer’s budget. No matter how convincing you are, you can run into a brick wall if they just do not have the money and indecision sets in causing procrastination. And that is how you waste your time. I have found out the hard way that it is better to have a sure, fast sale than risking an upgrade when there are big bucks involved.
Having your Customers Sell for You
This is as important as training your customers to buy only from you. Customer referrals by word of mouth are customers selling for you. That is why after you thank them for their purchase, you ask your customers to send you their friends.
Playing Possum to Get the Sale
After you have become a top producer, you will notice that what ever you do on the sales floor will be noticed by your co-workers. It also means that when you go to greet a customer, they will want to follow your lead. You will be the one setting the pace on the sales floor. If you grab every customer your co-workers will follow. To your big surprise you will have inadvertently cloned some of your co-workers, to be exactly like you. They will copy your every move. Now it is time to outsmart your newly acquired competition. When you are waiting for customers to walk into the store, pretend you are doing something else, like straightening stock or playing with a product, but with one eye on the door so if a customer walks in you can immediately go to them. You will notice that when you pretend you are cleaning or straightening something, your co-workers will be too lazy to copy what you are doing. The idea of playing possum is to throw them of guard so you can get more sales.
Dressing Up for Success
I talked about the customer’s body language but what about your body language. Are you doing your very best to look sharp? If you are going to control the sale or want to be the top producer, you better look the part. You want your customers to see you in shined shoes, neat shirt and well groomed. Cigarette and bad breath is a no-no. When your customers look at you up and down you want them to instantly feel comfortable with your appearance. If you are planning on staying in sales, get rid of it, if you are wearing a beard. The statistics say that beards and sales do not mix. Gentlemen, make sure that you have a close shave daily and no scruffy whisker.
You really do not want to have that grubby look as it will not impress your clients. Always look your customers in the eyes, never turning away or look down at your shoes when you are speaking. It is a sign of insecurity and you may be perceived as being shifty. If your customer does not trust you he will not buy from you. Keep a big smile, have a firm handshake, have good posture and never slump your shoulders. Learn how to assess people and practice how to speak well.
The Early Bird Gets the Worm
The early bird gets the worm” also applies to sales. If you work in a busy destination store, you will notice that when the store opens, most of the time there are customers waiting for the front door to open. These customers are destination shoppers that customarily always buy. Destination customers usually do not stand in line in the early morning to come into a store just to browse around. That means if you are the one who opens a busy store, you have the benefit of getting the destination shoppers. You have an advantage when you close the store at the end of the day; you get the customers that come in to your store after work and they also usually buy. Still the opener has the clear advantage as he will make more sales than the closer.
Using a Mirror to Check your Style
Do you want to know what you look like when you greet a customer? Or when you make a sales presentation in front of one? Let’s tweak your presentation in front of a mirror, so you can correct your faults and your bad habits. When you practice in front of a mirror you can fine tune your style, check if your posture is perfect, and if you like what you see. Your co-workers are not there to correct you in any way. Only your boss will give you constructive criticism and you will not like hearing about your faults from your boss. Go in front of that mirror and be honest with yourself and see what your co-workers and customers notice about you every day.
Part Eleven
Snatch the Product to Get the Sale
When you see customers with a product in their hands and it looks like they want to buy, not just feel and squeeze it, you have to get it from them to insure that you get the sale. If you do not get the product away from them, another sales person will end up with the sale. A customer grabbing one item to buy could be just the beginning of a large sale. This is what you do first. Walk up to the customer with your arm out and hand open and say, “let me take that for you so you can have your hands free to pick up other items.” If your customer says, “No, I want to hold it myself” you respond, “I need to know because I have to replace anything taken off the sales floor and replace it from the stock room.” If he still says “no” and it looks like it could be the start of a good sale stay close to the customer so no one else will approach him and wait for him to give you the product.
When you follow the customer around to make sure you get the sale is called dogging. The other approach to grab the merchandise is you walk up to the customer with an out stretched arm and say, “let me take that to the counter, I will ring it up for you when you are ready, and if you have any other question I am also a sales associate.” You use any tactic that you can think of to seize the product from the customer to get the sale. If you think the customer will say “no” to you, you can use this approach, “do you have the right color for that product, it is written on the box, let me show you.” If the product is not in a box, you can say, “Can I get you a fresh one from the back?” Or “do you have the right size for that?”
Is a Gift Receipt Ok?
For a commission sales person, the answer is no. The reason you should never offer a gift receipt is that if your sales code or name is on it and the gift is returned and not exchanged, you will lose the commission and the time you put into the sale. When the customer asks you for a gift receipt, you say that one is not needed because the name of the store is on the gift box or bag and one is not necessary. If they insist on one that is the only time it is ok.
What about Selling Gift Cards?
If you have a cashier that can sell them for you that’s fine because it is good for your store to sell them and you could get the commission later when the gift card is redeemed. What you should do, is convince your customer to buy a gift instead of a gift card because you make commission on the gift and the store still gets a sale. Chances are if you sell a gift card you will never see the recipient with the card. This is another time waster that takes you off the sales floor when there is no one else to do it for you. Management may require you to gift wrap as a part of customer service. If your customers buy a product that comes in a box and they ask you to wrap it for them, tell them, “we do not gift wrap but we do give complementary gift boxes.” “Do you really want to put one box into another?” Usually they will say, “No I will wrap it myself” and that saves you the trouble. But if your customer asks you, just do it with good will. When the store is busy and it is Ok with the customer, just put the gift item and the gift box in a bag. Doing it this way will save you a lot of time to get back on the sales floor to make more sales.
Tools of the Trade
You must have a full supply of business cards in your pocket at all times and that means you give one to every good customer. All business cards have the same things printed on them, your name, the name of the store or company with the address, phone and fax number. But that is not enough and the reason that is not enough is you can not train your customers to come in to the store only when you are there unless they remember the hours when you are there. That means you write your days off on the back of the business card so when they look at it they will be reminded of your days off. The next tool you need is a small voice recorder to keep in your pocket at all times.
You may have a good memory but here is why you need this little device. When you start having big sales and your customer say, “give me two of these, one of these, three of these” and so on, you have to stop your customer for a moment and excuse yourself to get a pen and paper to write down this order, as if you leave it to memory, you will make a mistake that will cost you money and may upset your customer because you forget something. You will find many other uses for a voice recorder besides helping you to remember large orders. I use one constantly. Hold tags are very important when a customer calls you and wants a product reserved.
You will need to make your own hold tags if management does not supply them to you. On the hold tag have the customers name on top with their phone number, the date you are reserving the product and the pick up date. If required have your manager sign the hold tag for everyone to know and see that the product being held can not be taken before the expiration date on the tag. Most holds should be good for about two or three days.
Customer Portfolio
You must keep a customer list for new products and follow-ups. Your list will consist of names, phone numbers, home and work with the type of products they like and any other relevant information.
Telephone Sales
If you work in a busy store where customers call constantly to inquire about products, make sure if you are allowed to answer the phone and do phone sales that you make this a priority to be the first one to take the call whenever possible. Phone sales can make your whole month very profitable. Follow these guidelines and you will be very successful making phone sales. Answer the phone with a clear, polite and upbeat voice with the following, “thank you for calling the (store name) then your name followed by, “how can I assist you?” When you receive a call for a product and it is a good commission item say, “that is my department.”
The customer will feel glad he is speaking to the right person. Ask him to reserve the product as you may not have many in stock. Try to tie up the sale over the phone so when he or she comes to the store you will have the sale in the bag. Fill out the hold tag if necessary and make sure the customer remembers your name. This is what I say to the customer, “my name is Gary,” and spell it out. I then add, “Make sure you ask for me when you come in.” When they forget your name, the customers just walk in and ask for the product; therefore, you could lose the sale. I have seen many customers come in for me and say, “Is Greg here?” You see, they already forgot my name so I ask them to please write down my name, it is Gary. When doing phone sales you have to give the customer a reason to ask only for you when they come into your store.
How to Get Along with Co-Workers when They do not like You
Always avoid anyone who tries to discourage or sabotage your technique on selling or puts down what you are trying to do. Most of the time arguments stem from disagreements over whose sale it is. Here is a good example. You sell a product to a customer and you leave the customer to help someone else and all of a sudden your customer needs you to get something else and you are not around, he will ask somebody else for help. What happens when another sales person sells your customer a product when you were too busy with someone else? Who gets the sale? The best way to handle this type of problem is to always pay attention to what is going on with your customers. The store policy says (most of the time) that if you are the first to bring a product to a customer, it is your sale. You may have to split the sale with your co-worker if you were gone too long.
Your argument should be that you left the customer only for a moment because the customer told you that he wanted to look around for a while. Naturally, you had to let him look around alone. If you win the argument, and get the sale, your co-worker may resent you. If this happens, a lot of your co-workers may harbor ill feelings for you or become your enemy. If you have a disagreement with a co-worker, never disagree in front of the customer. Always take it to the back room so no one can hear you argue. When it is a small sale and you can not come to an agreement or split the sale, give the sale to your co-worker in a friendly manner. But when the same happens during a large sale, get management involved. If that happens, understand, you could lose the sale.
Asking too Many Questions
When you know a persons personality you will be able to communicate with them on a different level. You want a person to respond positively to your presentation and questions because if you ask the wrong question it is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. The right question will get a favorable response and this also applies to your immediate supervisors and managers. There are questions that backfire. Dangerous questions, smug questions, and silly questions make you look dumb. Not all questions will make you look dumb it depends if your question is dealing with tangibles or intangibles. If they are intangibles you have the right to ask. On the other hand you can find out about tangibles on your own. Then there are asking questions at the wrong time.
The questions that will make you look stupid. The typical reason for beginners asking too many questions is that they feel at loss about product knowledge or where is this product and how does it work. Here are some really irritating questions commonly asked by beginners. “This new digital camera that just came in, can you tell me how much memory it comes with, how much optical zoom, and how many mega pixels does it have?” Why are you asking me those questions when all you have to do is get out the instruction book that comes with the camera and read it. Next, go into the stock room and look for it. Your co-workers do not want to do your work for you. Lack of initiative is not the quality for sales. When you are new at a job it is usually understood that you will ask more questions than usual to learn the day to day routine. But there has to be a limit to your questions because your co-workers will start getting annoyed if you over do it for too long.
If you can find the answer to any question you have by finding it out on your own, this is what you do to make a good impression on your co-workers and your superiors. Dangerous questions generate a bad response in most people and you can not know in advance how they will react. It is wise not to ask dangerous questions because they can trigger feelings of insufficiency, blame, rejection, and other negative connotations. Here are some examples of dangerous questions.
“Why did you do this to me?” How could you do such a thing?” It is unwise to ask a question with the word “why” in front of it especially if there is anything negative attached to it. The why can be substituted into what, how and could in most questions. You do not want your question to immediately put someone on the defensive. Your questions must be sincere and not to be misread. This goes for customers as well, as they do not walk into your store with a personality badge attached to their shirt to describe themselves. The best questions are the smart questions. But smart questions require a thinking process so you can gain the advantage because smart questions begin before you ask the question. Smart questions are the type of questions management knows you have no way of finding out the answer on your own.
How to co-exists with Co-workers when They are not Friendly to You
The people you work with can affect how you feel about your job because of your working relationships with them. How can you expect to coexist with everybody? Our environment is like a huge mixer into which is cast uncut diamonds, pebbles, chunks of rocks, rubes, emeralds, which is then filled with a scrubbing
solution which spins, scrubs and buffs. After a period of time, the result is sparkling new stones. Within this environment, we are all tossed in at the same time with our inadequacies, faults, weaknesses and limitations. These are then scrubbed over and over peeling and scrapping off the bad temperament in one another to soften up our character so that someday we may all be “refined and cultured” individuals. There can be a karmic explanation why we do not get along with certain people or some lesson to be taught or a particular debt with that person. When you have a conflict with someone, it is telling you that you must be around that person to both learn your character flaws.
Being Convincing
The most successful sales person is the most convincing salesperson. How can an average person do this? How do you close a sale within minutes or even seconds? Will learning the 56 different sales closes do it? What about going to sales seminars, or learning communication skills and personality types? Will learning all these make you more convincing? Some people in this company I know of went to an important sales seminar from a top person in that field, and also watched tapes on learning sales skills. When they were finished, I saw no significant changes in their skill level. There is a vast difference between listening to a lecture and putting them into practice by applying the truths it contains.
The reason these people did not accomplish noticeable changes is that it still boils down to the hard fact that only a small percentage of sales people do the greatest percentage of sales. What I am saying here is that you have to position yourself into that small percentage category doing the greatest percentage of sales. All the outside help you can get is good, but unfortunately the amount of retention from seminars and tapes is very little.
Most people retain ten percent to twenty five percent of what they see and hear. How can you become a convincing sales person? When you work with people you have to become childlike. A remarkable child blossoms and unfolds like a wonderful flower without any intention to publicize its evolving scent, innocent of his own excellence. The child’s mind is a mind with a heart and is by nature sincere, pure, open, honest, spontaneous, eager and frank; a child is also forgiving and expresses sweetness, laughter, calmness and humbleness with love and trust. A childlike person automatically expresses these qualities and becomes enthusiastic without the ignorance of a child. Unfortunately, the man who does not develop the qualities mentioned above will be continually plagued with fear, worry, selfishness and suspicion and this will rob him of his peace and will cause him nothing but unhappiness.
As there may be many different kinds of sales closes being thought by the pundits, you do not have to try to memorize all of them for success. What you do have to memorize is your product knowledge. Mix that with the qualities of an eager child and you are then on your way in becoming one of the 10 percent of people that do 90 percent of the sales in all companies. In other words, a childlike person approaches customers without using manipulative techniques. Let us use this as an example, a child asks a pal, “would you play domino with me?” and the pal answers, “yeah, I like playing domino.” The child who asked the question got an immediate response to whether his friend was interested in playing domino or not. Likewise, you can tell when a customer is a buyer. All you have to do is ask questions and let your customer do the talking.
When you try to convince your customer about your product, you are creating resistance, but when you keep asking questions, your customer will remain involved in the conversation. When you ask questions make sure you ask open questions, meaning ask questions that will not call for a yes or a no answer. Open questions are those questions that call for continuity in answering. In the meantime you will also learn a lot about your customer and you will soon find out if it is worthwhile spending time and resources on him. Once you have a clear understanding of what your customer wants or needs then ask him some more questions on how to serve him or her.
A childlike person does not need to convince anyone to buy just asks questions and let the customer open up and tell you what, how, and when he or she wants. Let your customer take complete responsibility for giving you his business. Your customer should never leave your store feeling he or she has been talked into buying anything. During a sale process, you should both feel free to express yourselves freely, like a child, without fear. You want to establish an environment of openness and honesty. This will also facilitate trust building with your customers while you work toward a mutually beneficial closing.
And, as soon as you find out during your “questions” approach that your customer wants what you have, you will know your customer is ready to commit to do business with you. There is no convincing involved, there is no resistance and there is less objections. The only time you will try to convince your customer is when you want to sell a newer and better product than the one your customer came in for. Hence, if you practice the qualities mentioned above, I can assure you your sales will improve according to the amount of time and focus you put in.
Complaints are for the Weak
Not only is complaining a bad idea but unless it is a legitimate complaint about a co-worker or a serious situation, you are only affirming a negative state of affairs. For example, when business is very slow never affirm that to yourself or to your co-workers because it reinforces a negative condition and you do not want any negativity emanating from you. Be careful when you complain about your co-workers. When you point one finger at them, two fingers can be pointed back at you so you must pick and choose your fights and complaints very carefully. Management never looks favorably at sales people that complain a lot. You will be looked at as a pain in the butt if you complain too much. If you become sad, moody or go to pieces because someone has criticized you, know that this is one of your weak links. Circumstances are brought into our lives to give us the opportunities to recognize and heal all of our psychological weaknesses.
Closing
You may wonder how and why the following chapter belongs here. Just think for a moment about the conflicts you have to go through in dealing with co-workers and other people daily, and you will realize that to properly solve the complexities of every day life in and off the work place, a guidance system is necessary. As a ship uses a navigation system for direction and guidance, similarly, we sorely need, first of all, understanding of universal laws to be able to apply and use them conscientiously in every word and deed. Once you understand the modus operandi of universal laws, you will be able to see things from a deeper perspective. You will be able to understand why certain people are brought together and you will be able to reflect, focus and think of possible ways, alternative ways to solve conflicts and improve situations, including financial situations.
The greatest problems facing our public education system is the lack of knowledge of fundamental principles and universal laws. For the great majority of people, life is like a complicated “puzzle game” with its intricacies and tragedies. Indeed, it is like a tricky game in to which we are all thrown together and the challenge is for us to solve this puzzle. Everything, I mean, absolutely everything revolves around a basic principle, the principle of “cause and effect.” When the educational systems around the world start pushing backward other subjects of study, starting in kindergarten, and insert instead the study and understanding of this principle as a “priority learning,” the student will then be able to position himself at a great advantage in solving this seemingly complicated puzzle, the “game of life.”
The following chapter belong here because you need a better understanding of “why” you hate your job, “why” you can not stand the people you work with, “why” the people around you is rude and so on. This may be shocking to you, but you already know “why” is a crocked letter so you must understand the problem is “how” you react to people is what is causing the problem because you can not change people, it is you who needs to change your attitude. Yes, I know it sounds unbelievable, but it is as simple as that. You have to take responsibility for choosing how you react and respond to whatever the world throws at you, good or bad. Here is where knowledge of fundamental principles and universal laws will help you tap into the power of your subconscious mind and will empower you to apply attitude with positive energy and positive outcome every time; and in turn you will create lasting impressions in all people you come in contact with.
Karma: A Wake up Call
The law of success is scientific in nature. We are responsible for ourselves and no one can answer for our own actions. You need to learn all of these laws on your own, so you have to be your own teacher. Before you can become a real sales dynamo, it is imperative to learn about the laws of karma, astrology, habits and the subconscious mind, willpower, and the importance of meditation. What I am writing in this final chapter I have not collected from the National Enquirer. These words come to you from a line of Spiritual Masters who spoke from a state of cosmic consciousness from which you can learn divine strategies. If you are receptive, it can help you to gradually build the power of discrimination and observation. This will, in turn, guide you throughout your life in making the right decisions always. The principle of karma is the “absolute discipliner.” A typical man most often follows a careless existence not comprehending its purpose.
He cannot understand that his whole existence is a gladiatorial boot camp for people who are lacking mental, physical and spiritual development. Most people are totally unprepared for what is coming to them in life. The misbehaving man can get away with breaking human laws and its penalties. But the justice of karma is inescapable. This subject is so vast because we are dealing with physical disease, emotional disease, mental disease, and karmic disease, imposed upon us from previous incarnations, such as cancer. Staunch vegetarians die of cancer because diet makes no difference. You don’t have to repeat this to those who have cancer.
When you have dragged your feet long enough away from spiritual laws or God; finally, as a karmic accelerator cancer comes to your life so that you can destroy a karmic bill of many incarnations to come in one single lifetime; therefore, even cancer is a blessing in disguise. You can be in top physical shape; you can do everything, run, jog, nutrition, and everything else and die of cancer just the same as retribution from previous incarnations.
The computation of various studies resulted in that nearly all diseases are psycho-somatic or thought induced. One day the time will come when psychologists and psychiatrists will take the place of doctors. You must understand that these illnesses are psycho-somatic thoughts influenced by the subconscious mind field-memory and inharmonious flows of pranic (energy) currents. As in the Grand Canyon you have the Coral River that begins with all kinds of curves into this river, similarly, you are creating inharmonious flows in your body. As a result, scoliosis of the spine may develop. Most of us have this deformed spine that is why we have millions of people going to chiropractors and osteopaths. We have one leg shorter than the other and trouble with our hips because the currents of energy are not flowing properly in our body, and as they begin to move in a certain way, they begin to disturb at every level the proper equilibrium of the inner structural body.
Unless one goes to the root cause of the disease itself, we cannot prevent its occurrence. We have to destroy the blueprints of disease which are locked up as memory banks in the computer of the subconscious mind. Astrology is the mathematics of your life and the mathematics of your actions. There are planetary influences that cause you to have a hard time getting along with specific people who are there to teach you specific attitudes. You must try to understand that anything that happens to you in your life sub serves a divine purpose.
Some have the wrong wife; some have the wrong husband, stepmother or stepfather. They are all there attracted by our own inner environmental magnetic field. Some people run to astrologers for astrological interpretation of their karma. Learning your horoscope can have a tendency to freeze or weaken your willpower and paralyze you with its inaccurate messages. Karma rules the brainless stars and your fate. We are not made in the image of astrology; we are made in the image of God. Is astrology a true science? Yes it is but, there are few scientists who understand it. You have to be a pretty highly advanced being to be able to tell the karma of a person and his future.
And you can make tremendous karma when you influence a person to believe things that you believe to be true, for if you are an astrologer, for every mistake you have made in your astrological chart you are going to take that karma of the individual. This is not a simple business, so if you consider yourself to be an astrologer, start to consider what you are saying as one astrologer told a friend, “You will be dead in ten years.” Can you imagine a mistake like that?
If you tell people that all kinds of terrible things are going to happen to them, it will happen because none of us are positive enough or fearless enough to reject negative ideas or suggestions. We are afraid of the unknown and when someone begins talking about the unknown cautioning us, we are afraid. You must understand that our whole galaxy or present universe is moving at incredible speeds. Therefore, how are you going to find out the exact planetary conjunctions of a child at birth? Only a master can through his intuition.
If you are off more than a few seconds you can not have an absolute exact condition. Spiritualizing astrology is a very complex subject. If your body is very strong and your mind is powerful, and certain destructive vibrations radiate from the stars due to past karmic blueprints in your subconscious mind and they begin to shed their rays upon you, there will be no reaction at all because you will be impervious to their rays, your shield is strong. How do you develop this shield? Suppose your body and mind are weak at that particular moment and your biorhythms are low and your immunity is weak due to certain transgressions such as wrong eating, lack of exercise and sexual abuse. What will happen? The cosmic rays will have great power to affect you.
There are certain outward protections, such as astrological bangles that have specific weight, consisting of three metals combined in a pure form of silver, gold and copper. Certain sizes of diamonds can also be effective. Unfortunately, if you are not spiritually strong the radiation will start affecting you in a destructive way when using large stones as a shield. If you are spiritual, you will absorb the radiation and the magnetic shield will protect you. The whole idea is that if you do not protect yourself, those karmic laws begin to come to collect bills. Children should learn these laws to be able to take care of themselves. You must reprogram the computer of your subconscious mind with strong positive affirmations.
Astrology is a scientific study of the astronomical influences which comes at certain periods of your life according to the planetary conjunctions of certain planets and time specific magnetic fields, attraction and repulsion. You are born at the very specific time where specific conjunctions are aligned and this guides and influences your entire life if you do not control your destiny by willpower. How can you control your destiny? Take Nostradamus, who with great accuracy could see four hundred years into the future happenings of the world. He predicted the colossal draught which is happening in parts of the world today and all the starvation in Africa. The future is already made, the movie is finished. It is all there on the big screen of this cosmic drama.
But you can change your destiny. Fate means that you make absolutely no effort to stop all kinds of things from happening to you. You let yourself sink into the misery of the experiences of life because the moment you suffer physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, you start fighting like a wild animal but you
also, intuitively, begin to remember who you are. The soul does not evolve, it must be reawakened.
The quicker you learn how to control your destiny the less suffering you will have. There are those who seek a higher state of consciousness and the meaning of life and those who don’t. The principle of reincarnation brings us back again and again and again, until one finally makes the grade. There is a tremendous fear for some of this endless cycle of reincarnation. The more you begin to understand the whole show of this creation the more you will be willing to break out of this endless cycle of rebirths. There are much higher levels of consciousness where we can live. At its very best, this is nothing but a penitentiary colony for spiritually retarded people; however, the moment you begin to develop your God given intelligence, it becomes a school of wisdom for immortals.
Neuroscientists say that when you are with a group of people they begin to alter your psycho neuro-bio-chemistry in the neurons of your brain. This is why you have to be more cautious with whom you meet. We have three brains, physical, astral and mental (Ideas). When you die and leave the body, those traces of bad habits remain inside your astral brain and come back to you, incarnation after incarnation. Renoir, the great exuberant French painter said, “I loved women even before I could walk.” Now that is a seemingly shocking statement isn’t it? However, it is a scientific statement because at the age of three years old your bad habits begin to gradually probe and guide your life automatically. There are pictures of a boy at sixteen months old smoking a cigar and another of an English boy, about two years old, smoking a pipe with great delight.
These bad habits are very well implanted in your subconscious mind and they are known as samskaras which are the dormant traces of our past karma. When you die you will realize that this body was not yours and your mind was not yours either but something grafted upon you. There is mathematical exactitude in all the genetic code people are reborn with. You may be reborn in a family where a specific chromosome is reactivated to excessive drinking, sex, smoking and so on. When you are more spiritual you are born to a specifically designed family just for you. Therefore never complain about your father or mother being responsible for you, never. Once you understand this principle, you will realize that you are totally responsible for where you are now and when the whole world understands this reality, what a better world it would be.
This present link of life is but one link in the chain of countless incarnations. Your subconscious mind is like a computer. Inside is a micro chip of every incarnation you have ever lived and of the specific personalities you have had. For instance, if you see a person who is in peace most of the time, try to walk on his toes and you will see a different person from one second to another. Something you have said or done may have triggered certain behavior that has made this person completely different from the one you know. We have multi personalities in our subconscious mind that can be triggered any time with one word. When you are married be careful how you treat each other because you can trigger the worst in each other. For countless incarnations we have been soldiers.
The last twenty four hundred years have been a trail of blood where there have been total misunderstandings about everything and endless wars. We all have those habit tendencies of violence and that is why we enjoy movies like the “Terminator.” Much of our karma is un-manifested. When you see an iceberg in the sea, you just see a small portion of it above the surface because most of it is hidden beneath. Only a small portion of man’s karmic tendencies come to the surface in our current life conditions. We come into this world with a great amount of karma we have created. In this life we are working out only a small amount of it. When you want to become spiritual all hell breaks loose and it becomes harder to get out of this self-created mess you are in. You will find that when you want to become evil the whole world will assist you, but when you want to become spiritual, you will find yourself swimming against the current of the world.
We will all be confronted by the Judgment when we leave the body. The computation of all our actions, thoughts and feelings will prepare us for our next incarnation. There is no lawyer there to defend you. A friend told me he was drowning and saw the big screen with all the various facets of his life and was able to understand everything he saw at the same time. For some reason, unknown to him, he was revived and brought back to life and remembered all of this. It is said that if you have made a spiritual effort in this life God will be with you just to show you that this life was just a play, and you were just playing a role. But if you have not made a spiritual effort it will be as real for you and there could be more pain and suffering until you wake up to understand the big picture of creation.
All those dormant seeds of karma in your subconscious and super conscious mind can find expression when appropriate magnetism reenergizes it. For example, if you give a party you are taking a big chance when you serve alcohol. Among those people you serve might be a person who has a seed of a ticking bomb of deep alcoholism and you could be the hand that reenergizes the bad seed of tendencies for self destruction and guess what, you will be accounted for it when you leave the body. You may say you can’t be responsible for something I did not know. If there is no excuse in human law, can you imagine with God’s laws? In the science of yoga you very quickly realize you are not dealing with ethics, moral codes, constitutional rights, but you are dealing with cosmic laws or magnetic forces few people are aware of. Therefore, you become more intelligent and begin to study your own behavior.
The cosmic laws of justice are the “unseen controllers” that are recording everything you do twenty four hours a day. There is no place you can hide yourself to escape your actions and, I tell you, if I was a lawyer I would really sweat it out, but as a teacher it could be even worse not to tell the truth. The prophets of old used the threat of dire punishment to whip dark minds about God’s laws. Fear was the only way dark minds could be moved by. They used all those words to threaten to make the people change. Because if you told them they were immortals they would have said, “I have so many incarnations; why bother to be good, let me enjoy being evil for a while.”
We are all supposed to learn spirituality from our fathers and mothers. Unfortunately, most parents do not know spiritual laws; therefore, you must become your own lawyer, your own psychologist, and your own psychiatrist to understand that one moment of violence can be triggered by alcohol and it may kill somebody. Drunk and reckless drivers are killing themselves and other people by the thousands.
The law of karma is operating here. Learning spiritual laws will help you avoid violent behavior and excesses. Those who refuse to educate themselves and never try anything out of the mainstream of thought and insist on doing nothing will one day pay through the nose. It does not matter whether you believe in karma or not. The law of karma operates with or without your permission. Some people are not convinced about reincarnation. There is no convincing here; you either believe it or you don’t. You ought to know yourself through the power of intuition and you can not convince anyone to believe in anything. It would be very unfair if God gave you the brain of a halfwit or a moron and gave another person the intellect of an Einstein. He is not partial. The scientists explain it very clearly what happens in our brain when we meditate properly. A complete transformation takes place. Our undesirable karma cannot be destroyed without contact with God through meditation. There are vibratory pictures of distant or future events that are now passing through the ether.
The vibratory thought patterns of an incident that is to happen in the future is present in the ether now, according to the laws and action of cause and effect. You can develop the power of protecting your family from future accidents which are waiting for you according to cosmic laws. As the solar system moves, we are moving into space time continuum into the news of tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. Everything is already written about your ego, but you are not the ego; you are not made in the image of the stars. Therefore, in the degree you change your status as a spiritual being you can change what is going to happen to you in the future.
When the future is there waiting for you, you won’t be there. In summation, the greatest minds of today still can not understand what the masters are telling us. When is a human being a human being? At one second, the moment the spermatozoon fuses with the ovum of the mother there is a huge flash of light in the astral world and the soul goes into that vehicle of light and enters at the base of the spine into the body of the mother. And it is only because the soul is there that the body can develop. It is the intelligence of the soul that develops the body.
The Inner Circle
In this segment, I am addressing only those of you whom I consider to be in the inner circle. As I mentioned before there are two kinds of people in the world, those who seek God and those who do not. You will never be satisfied with the world, if you don’t. It is impossible. But among those who seek God there are two kinds of people. There is the inner and the outer circle. Those in the inner circle are steadfast and constantly trying week after week, month after month, year after year to discipline themselves and expand their minds. Why? Because they now have a deep inner conviction that they are divine beings and they want to be free. You can acquire this discipline through the practice of meditation. There is a hidden stair in meditation which will take you up the spiritual ladder onto the stage of freedom. For those of you who are not on a spiritual path, the following paragraphs may be hard to swallow. Considering the state of this world today you may want to think carefully about looking into the spiritual path.
At the time of dying, the bird (man or disciple) is trapped by the hawk of impending death and forgets its blissful chirping and starts shrieking in fear. As long as your spiritual development is not deeply implanted, the severe pain of illness or the nearness of death will spark you to shriek in fear and you will fail to remember the divine spirit for it is said that your last thoughts at death will determine your next incarnation. In effect, if your last thoughts are of your wife or children, your possessions and money, those exact thoughts or unfulfilled desires will charter your next rebirth. If you are deeply spiritual and your last thoughts are of God, and you have anticipated and planned this event properly, you will be propelled to a highly spiritual family in your next incarnation and this will hasten the amount of countless rebirths.
Let’s be reminded that any unfulfilled desires no matter how small, must be fulfilled and will guarantee your return to earthly life. It is said that the last desire of the advanced spiritual man to fulfill is not sexual desires, it is food. What goes through your mind when you see someone gulping down their food like there is no tomorrow? Most would say that the kind of person who eats too fast has a very bad habit. Why? The greed for food affects many people. Some joke about their so called daily fix; I have to have my cappuccino or I will not be able to function.
Keep in mind that there is no Starbucks in the astral world. I am not saying give up your daily fix of coffee. What I am saying is to enjoy your coffee, but practice neutrality by keeping your daily habits under control, meaning you must remain centered. By staying in the middle, you can choose to have a cappuccino today and a glass of orange juice tomorrow. You are under control. Remember the principle of polarity. There is a pendulum like movement. To all action, there is always a reaction, but when you apply the mental law of neutralization you will be able to polarize yourself right in the middle thus neutralizing the swing of the pendulum which would inevitably carry you to the other pole. There is the positive pole and the negative pole.
Therefore, when you, if in the middle, will be unaffected by mood swings and you will be able to attain mental poise and firmness. The average person does not even ask himself, why am I here on this earth? Or what is the meaning of life? It is usually when a man reaches the age of thirty six if he has had little or no spiritual exposure. That is usually the time when we are hit with the two-by-four in the school of hard knocks. With such things as divorce, overweight, loss of a loved one, the onset of disease. With some it is just the humiliation of old age. And then you start asking why me? This life is a school of wisdom, and the wise man soon finds out that pain is the prod for remembrance.
The soul does not evolve, it must be reawakened. It was told to me that one of the great spiritual masters of our age stated that “life is a nightmare with a few occasional good dreams.” Now, that is a pretty heavy statement. I will further explain the meaning of this statement in my next writing. The average person’s life is getting up in the morning, eating, going to work, coming home and eating again, watching a little television, and then going to bed. How can man evolve living like that? Without any spiritual advancement you would need one million solar years to evolve naturally without any spiritual effort. Do you want proof? A copy of the book “Autobiography of a Yogi” by Paramahansa Yogananda, a spiritual classic, explains the actual meditation technique of burning off karma, which is freely given by the Self-Realization Fellowship in lesson form mailed to your home. I have read this book about twelve times, and I found answers for every spiritual question. I hope more people have the good karma of reading this book, as no one gets it by accident.
Karma and Your Money
Here are never revealed secrets for success. Many people think all they need to make money is to be smart, wrong. While the majority of wealthy people are smart, a combination of other factors comes into play. If you take several thousand money-oriented men, one unswervingly pursues wealth! Out of these unwavering pursuers, only a single one becomes wealthy! You cannot accumulate wealth without ingenuity and dynamic willpower. If a thousand people in a variety of conditions and circumstances would pray intensely and make the ultimate pursuit to amass wealth and try to become millionaires, most of them would be unable to make it in one lifetime. Just look around and tell me. How many people whom you know are wealthy? For the majority of people it would be necessary to go through several lifetimes to get into the correct surroundings that would entitle them to acquire good individual karma to become wealthy millionaires.
Do not let this discourage you in any way, as you could be closer to your goal than you know. You should be relentless in acquiring your goals as long as you keep a balanced life. If this does not motivate you to double or triple your efforts, you may be in for a sad awakening some day. Let’s put this into a different perspective. Do you want to become a millionaire? Are you willing to pay the price? Visualization and willpower alone are not enough to make or give you the rank and position of becoming a millionaire. But, unshrinking, fearless faith along with dynamic willpower, and positive thoughts coupled with visualization so intense, will propel your dynamic willpower toward realizing your goals. Within the bounds of reason you can make it possible.
You can not change your bad habits, your past and present karma and become affluent just by prayers and faith if your current karmic conditions are not propitious. It is absolutely impossible. Opulence necessitates advantage, and requires a circumstanced environment. If you are not in an auspicious encouraging environment, there can be a thousand mentally superior minds, but if they are not in those karmic induced surroundings, they will have to labor hard for many incarnations to come before the rule of economic development that will allow them the status of a millionaire.
Why pray foolishly or illogically for possessions that you could not have in your period of development at that time. Thinking prayers will be answered, belief turns to doubt, because of false reasoning. In a state of uncertainty, to believe in and unceasingly praying is not enough. All karmic goals have to be earned. First you need to build a relationship with God, then once a relationship is established; your prayers will be answered. A praying beggar will be given what he deserves, a paupers trifle. Never beg when you pray as beggary reduces your prayers to that of a poverty stricken vagrant. When you pray, demand as a divine child talking to a parent asking for what is rightfully yours as a divine son. Do this with conviction and see what happens then when you pray correctly. You can pray to God in the aspect of a forgiving mother instead of a father aspect who expects you to follow his laws.
A mother aspect of God will always forgive her erring son. We need to change our standing from mislead worldly souls living of the crumbs of our karma, to divine beings who can control our destiny as children of God. As I mentioned above ingenuity and dynamic willpower are very important factors. To be able to apply ingenuity you will need to be smart, but to apply dynamic willpower you will need emotional and spiritual intelligence. Once you have put together these three factors, intellectual, emotional and spiritual intelligence, you will be ready to apply dynamic willpower, which I call “the hyper will power” because once you learn how to use this power; it will work tirelessly toward the achievement of your goals. What could have taken you lifetimes to achieve could have turned into a short-cut to the achievement of your goals in this lifetime.
You have the power to manipulate your karmic conditions to acquire good individual karma in a lifetime. This could be the lifetime for good karmic achievements. There are strategies and methods in many fields that have been scientifically proven to work, but every now and then strategies and methods require fine tuning, revision and improvement. Likewise, intellectual, emotional and spiritual intelligence require fine tuning through revision of habits and necessary lifestyle improvements. For faster results there is a systematic process called “meditation.” It has been scientifically proven that meditation causes profound changes in the psyche. Every intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually balanced individual practices some form of deep concentration, meditation and prayer.
The Fine Art of Mental Pictures. Part II
The great sages and spiritual masters from India say there are two kinds of people in the world, the ones that meditate and the ones that don’t. For those of you who meditate, you have a clear advantage over those that do not meditate. Visualization is not meditation or a form of it. Meditation is not thoughts; it is focusing your attention on the object of meditation. For example, if you want to know what a lake is, you can jump into the lake, swim into the lake and absorb into the lake. Likewise, meditation is absorbing oneself into the object of meditation. It is extremely important to keep your attention locked up at the point between the eyebrows, otherwise you are just sitting; you are not meditating at all.
The same thing applies to visualization and affirmations. When one is able to absorb into the object of meditation, one is able to cross beyond and above the conscious mind where the land of the great, omnipotent spirit begins. And true meditation is absorption in God. During your meditation you must break the connection between the body and your mind. As long as you are conscious of your body you cannot go deep into meditation. You have to have complete forgetfulness of your body and that means a state of absolute immovability in your meditation. As long as you move even once, like to scratch yourself, you have broken that magnetic field and you have to start over again at that point to gain depth in meditation. Desires are constantly agitating you and wisdom can only be perceived when you stop moving.
Intuition comes the moment you are still and guides you. That is why some people quit meditating. They cannot go deep enough to gain any results and they lose interest. One of the advantages of meditation is that you learn how to focus your attention at the point between the eyebrows and that technique will make it easier to visualize. Focusing your attention is important. If you focus with your eyes turned upward you can reach the super conscious state where success dwells. When you look straight or forward with closed eyes, you are wasting your time accomplishing nothing.
But, if your eyes are in a downward position, it is the sleep state of the subconscious mind and you will probably dose off and fall asleep when you are doing this exercise at night or when you are tired or sleepy. If you know the techniques of meditation, the best time to visualize is at the end of your meditation when you are calm, and can easily focus your concentration. If you do not meditate or know the scientific steps to be taken before hand, here is a general guide that you can use to visualize scientifically. Sit up straight facing east with your arms folded in front of you resting on your thighs, chin up and chest out. Free your mind of the thoughts of the day and cast away your worries and nervousness.
Make sure you are in a quite place where the vibrations are calming, that means you do not visualize or meditate in the same place that you look at television. If you hear any sounds during your practice, just ignore them and continue. Make sure that your body is relaxed and motionless and do not pay any attention to your body. People with weaker minds have a tendency to make bodily movements and lose their concentration. When you feel you are in a calm state, start doing your visualization. It is better to visualize with intensity for a short time than to put in more time with less intensity.
