Renaissance Woman Sam White:

Got your hands on a couple of live comedy tickets? Prepare yourself for a laugh riot! Live comedy typically features a solitary comedian technically referred to as a stand-up comic.
He or she may well narrate a quick series of brief jokes and funny stories or one-liners.
Usually called an act, a monologue or a routine, they are often performed in bars, clubs, theatres and universities.
Each routine is roughly 30 mins long and it often takes months for even experienced pros to practice, polish and perfect their acts.

By the 1970s, the dominant humour style was the unsophisticated, often obscene, ma-in-law gag type, which could include racially offensive material which, these days, would deffinately be regarded as quite unacceptable. During the start of the 1980’s ‘alternative’ comedy started to become popular, qualified by wacky, even abstract, humour. It was not gag focused, although often very irreverent and fairly critical of the establishment. Today’s British live comedic style has developed into a great combination of both the alternative and “traditional” forms, with irreverence and political comment all having played a big part in it’s growth. The UK is now considered the international centre of stand-up comedy shows. Gig tickets are in great demand, not solely in England, but all over the world as well. There are many famous global events which have stand-up comedy gigs as their primary focus and selling point.

Some comedy venues sometimes give away comedy tickets for events refered to as open mic, at these new stand ups is allowed to have a crack on the stage.
This provides an opportunity for people to learn the craft before a crowd and maybe find a way into the circuit as professionals.

In the event you are searching for live comedy tickets you might also consider an “improv” show where songs, sketches, monologues, and so on are thought up then and there. This type of show is made up of a chain of improv games or scenarios. A divergence betwixt a stand-up comedy and an un-rehearsed performance is that in the first you only get a solo comedian, while in the latter a large cast or team of comedians work on getting laughs.

Additional info is also available by the program, such as how many searches each word or phrase gets, exactly how many different websites who exploit them, and details on your rivals as well. Last but not least, the data created can help in loacting related domains, help you in putting together your internet site, and also identify the best sales opportunities. Next you need to construct a site; yet there are still essential tasks to complete. Having a strong performance on web based search engines needs the fine tuning of your web site. Applications such as SEO Elite can make this easier. This software automatically examines the internet sites of your rivals and will offer you suggestions on what you must do to have top spot in the search engine results. With software such as SEO Elite, info created by the application indicates where you should find pertinent links, which words and phrases to focus on, and even information on where to submit articles. Succinctly, the results generated are the same kind of data that a specialist in search engine optimization may give. Once you determine your niche, have some product promotion, and your website is completed, then you are ready to significantly promote your search results. You’ll pick up a regular pay check and you’ll question why you didn’t consider this earlier!

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To begin with, you have to make up your mind precisely which area best suits your interests. To achieve this, identify what a specific set of web users are going through, and discover a way to deal with those issues. One of the best ways to find this is finding unique highly specific longtail keywords and phrases; there are fewer internet searches for these as a rule, even so a higher percentage of these convert. To discover these profitable keywords, you should use Micro Niche Finder. Data collected from this computer program or other computer programs and computer software compiles related terms in an extensive list giving worthwhile targets to get a high ranking in an internet search and bring in a lot of of traffic.

Further info is supplied by the program, for to illustrate the number of searches each word or phrase gets, just how many other sites who exploit those keywords, and inforamtion on your rivals as well. Ultimately, the information created will help you locate associated domains, help you put together your internet site, and even draw attention to the best sales opportunities.

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The next step is to put together a internet site; however it will take a bit more than that. Search engine optimization is an absolute must. Here SEO Elite information and other similar programs can help may help. Your rivals’ web sites are examined by the software which then provides advice to increase search results. With software such as SEO Elite, information produced from the computer software advises you on links, what words to concentrate on, and even information on where to submit articles. Succinctly, SEO Elite information is similar to the suggestions you might get from a practised SEO specialist.

Once you have discovered what target market you’d like to focus on, put together some product promotion, and your website has been constructed, then you are ready to further improve your search results. Your profits will roll in without much effort and wonder why you did not try affiliate marketing before!

But if you look at the numbers over the years, the success rate from prospecting to close has remained the same: in general, you close approximately 7% of your identified buyer population.

One would think that with the latest technology and techniques, with what you’ve learned about buyers over the years, with everything from predictors to salesforce.com to technology to new sales methods, the odds would change. But, if they change at all, the differential is minimal. You’re still looking at a 90% failure rate, no matter what sales method, what predictive technology, what demographic study.

What’s the deal? Why is this happening? I have a theory (You knew I would, right?): sellers believe that by doing all the right things, the prospect will know how to buy.

Let me say that a different way: the basic belief is that if you give the right people the right information at the right time, presented in just the right way, and you ask the right questions to learn just the right data about them and then pitch the product data accordingly, they will know how to buy. Right?

Why have you believed that? Because you haven’t known how to get into the secret world of buyers. Because you’ve based your sales strategies on product sale. Because you’ve determined that information exchange (pitching and presenting, gathering client data) gets prospects to buy. Because as a breed (and I’m one so I can say this), sellers are arrogant, and assume we can somehow manipulate the situation in just the right way to close the deal (It’s a power and control thing.).

But it doesn’t work, or you’d close all of the deals that you think you should close. And you don’t. And there doesn’t seem to be a parallel equation between how well you sell, how great your product is, how appropriate your buyer is, how much your buyer needs the product, how much money your buyer has – and how soon they come back, if indeed they do.

I train clients in many industries, from banking to technology, from consulting to cosmetics, from 8 figure deals with highly complex sales to $15 sales. It all ends up the same: the buyer buy only when they align their internal systems (beliefs, values, relationships issues, management issues, initiatives, historic events, etc.) to address the relevent decision elements, so there will be no internal disruption when they take an action.

POWER AND CONTROL

Folks learning Buying Facilitation recognize that facilitating buying decisions has a much shorter time cycle, broader prospect reach, and greater success factor than pushing/pitching/presenting product, by a factor of at least 200%. Yet I hear them say: ‘But I’m used to being in control. If I’m going to help them make their own decision I’m out of control and I have to give the client too much power.’

What power and control do sellers actually have? When you’re using product/information-based sales methods, you actually have control only over your product data; you have no control over the buyer’s internal, hidden, buying decisions.

When using product-based sales methods – pitching, gathering problem-based data, designing ’solutions’ you believe they need – you’re merely guessing at all of the internal variables that need to be managed before a decision gets made: you don’t live within the buyer’s culture and truly have no idea how to effect change within it.

That’s right. I know you hate to hear this, but you are merely guessing.

* Do you know how your product would fit into their problem space? Probably.

* Do you know how your product would take care of the problem appropriately to give them what they say they want/need? Probably.

* Do you know how the buyer’s historic system created and maintain the problem that your product solves? Probably not.

* Do you know exactly how the buying decision will get made, or how the internal systems variables (people, interventions, policies, relationships) need to be managed so a decision can get made congruently, that will address all hidden, unique issues? Probably not.

* Do you know how historic decisioning procedures help prejudice current decision behaviors? Probably not.

* Do you know how relationships with current vendors or partners need to be managed so they will congruently become part of the change? Probably not.

Yet until these are all managed, buyers won’t buy. In fact, when your selling patterns only deal with solving what appears to be the identified problem, you actually giving up power and control because the power in the sales relationship lies with the buyer. Sales, as it is now, is an inappropriate model to support the buying decision process.

The decision is much bigger than choosing the right product.

INFORMATION

Let me give you an axiom: Information does not teach people how to make a decision.

While you’re shaking your head in agreement, note that information is exactly what you use to get a closed deal. And that is the exact problem with the sales process. Information is being pushed in or pulled out. All, ALL, current sales methods use information as the main focus.

But if information doesn’t teach people how to decide, then what does?

And, if you don’t give them product information, how will you sell your product?

First of all, let me allay your fears. Buyers need product information, but they need it in Phase 2 of the sales cycle, when they’ve already determined how to manage, align, and address all internal elements that need to be managed before they can make a decision. Then they absolutely need information and then you can use some of your current sales techniques (although big pitch or complex presentation will be moot).

But, before a buyer can get to the point where they’ll make a purchasing decision they run around making sure they handle all of the people and policies that created and maintain the problem. They will not – they will NOT – make a purchasing decision that will annoy anyone, or change anything someone deems sacred, or disrupt anything. This system discovery and alignment is Phase 1 of the sales cycle.

Information does NOT give you power or control. You want control? Lead buyers through their decision criteria with Facilitative Questions. I’m going to pose a Facilitative Question to give you some understanding of its power:

How do you know when it’s time to change your hairstyle?

Let’s look at this question:

1. given the wording, you cannot give me an answer about your furniture. This question, directs you to where I want you to think so you can uncover your values and decisions that ended up as a current behavior and ask you to make conscious your decision factors. Facilitative Questions, based on recognizing and managing values and unique criteria, lead the brain to the exact place it can recognize what went into a decision, and makes the subconscious conscious (and this is where decisions get made).

2. this question is criteria-based, not information-based. Otherwise it would be: Why do you wear your hair that way? Or Who gives you your haircuts? External information does not teach the listener how to begin to understand or manage their current decisions, nor get them to (re)consider their decision. The question above is based on the values that were affected when the decision got made – values and criteria an outsider would never understand (Face shape? Internal desire? Self image? Fashion? Historic data? Husband/Mother/Friend influence?).

3. the answer can only come from the listener, making the questioner the person leading the listener to a brain search. Offering information or asking a content-based question (Why do you wear that style?)does not teach you how to make a new decision, but gets you to recount decisions you’ve already made.

So – you want control? There you have it. Lead your buyers through their decision-making process by helping them understand all of the elements that went into helping them get where they are. And not just the people problems and initiatives that sit around the identified problem, and are plainly visible: all of the systems elements that are somehow entwined around the problem that must be managed for change to occur.
Use your position as an external ‘other’ to help people look into places they might not have looked into on their own. In this way, you can support a new decision, while placing yourself on the buyer’s decision team at the same time. Then you can become a true trusted advisor, while using true control to help others make their best decisions. The product sale will happen when buyers decide how to buy. After all, do you want to sell? Or have someone buy?

Sharon Drew Morgen is the author of NYTimes Bestseller Selling with Integrity. She speaks, teaches and consults globally around her elegant, doable sales model, Buying Facilitation.

http://www.newsalesparadigm.com

http://www.sharondrewmorgen.com

512-457-0246
Morgen Facilitations, Inc.
Austin, TX

However this is also at the root of one of lifes great paradoxes. Whilst we hate being sold to, we all love to buy. Buying something that we really want or that really solves a problem is a wonderful feeling. For people running a business this presents a real dilemma.

So often the selling techniques we experience as customers seem to be attempts to trick us into buying something we don’t really need and this practice in the past has given the entire selling profession a bad reputation. Having so often been the victims of these high pressure selling tactics, it’s not surprising that we are very uncomfortable when we have to sell.

So how do we solve this paradox – Easy.

Stop Selling!!

That’s right – None of us likes to be sold to – so don’t sell to people. On the other hand we love to buy – but – often we need help in making the right buying decision, we need someone to “Help us to Buy.”

As a sales trainer years ago I developed a new definition of selling when teaching people to sell life assurance.

It’s all a matter of concentrating on understanding a customer’s problem, really seeing what’s in it for them, what they want to achieve and then providing them with the best solution that fits their budget. This applies whether you are selling online or offline, focus on helping people to solve their problem and they will be comfortable about buying your products.

A few years ago I did a lot of work for the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management helping set up their training division. As an association they often got special exhibitor deals for trade shows and were all set to go off to one when they asked me what I thought of the promotion material.

It was a complex futuristic looking poster incorporating all the services they offered and took about 5 minutes to decipher. What they wanted to do was get new members and sell training courses and the post was clearly trying to sell all their services. I persuaded them to shift the focus and put up two hand-written posters that read:

They had salespeople queuing up at the stand for two days asking for more information and trying to get a free consultation from the sales trainers there. Sales people want more sales – they don’t want training courses or magazines or seminars – unless they lead to more sales.

What do your customers want? What problem are they looking for you to solve for them? How can you help them to buy?

When you send out a sales letter, when they come to your web site, visit your trade show booth, look into your shop window, pick up your brochure – what message do they see? Do they see a message trying to sell them something, or do they see a message helping them to buy a solution to a need or problem?

Copyright 2005 Richelle (Rikki) Arundel, UK

About the Author: Founder and First President of the Professional Speakers Association, Rikki Arundel is an International Keynote Speaker, Trainer and Writer and an expert in sales and marketing communications with an impressive track record. Get your free copy of How to Get Customers Queuing up to Buy at http://www.SpeakingandMarketingTips.com

The Devil is in the Details

The details of our sales presentations were the only things that differedand sometimes those details are minuteeven undetectable. They might occur on the subconscious level or the salesman, or they might be things that the salesman consciously does in order to influence the subconscious mind of their prospective client. The point is that, if you have a proven sales presentation, the difference between being excellent and being a failure is all up to you, and the details of your delivery of the presentation.

Before I give you these three ways to improve your sales presentation, I want to talk, just briefly, about the details that the salesman isn’t even aware of. These details are a result of the salesman’s subconscious belief that he can sell; that he can be persuasive. I’ve helped many salesmen improve their selling skills just with a little bit of hypnosis and self-hypnosis coaching. If you are serious about improving your selling abilities, get help through hypnosis for the really small details, and incorporate these three simple techniques into your presentation. You’ll be able to take the results to the bank.

1. Group your benefits into sets of three. The human mind likes sets of three; it is kind of uncanny. I’m not sure why, but the human mind will pay more attention to three things than it will to two or four. In my vacuum selling presentation, I might choose to discuss the cleaning power, convenience and durability of the vacuum, making sure to include those words in the same sentence. That way, I’ll hit my potential customer with three benefits at once, and their subconscious mind will take note and be interested. That’s why I’m giving you three suggestions here and not two or four.

2. Excite the imagination of your prospects by invoking all of the senses and using vivid descriptions. The decision to purchase something is influenced profoundly by the subconscious mind, and the imagination is intimately related to the subconscious. You might say something to the effect of, “As you hear the vacuum start up you can feel its tremendous cleaning power as you see the dirt being sucked from the carpet and smell the fresh scent of the clean room.” In that sentence, I invoked four senses. My prospective customer is very likely to be in tune with one of those, and the others will just help to increase the power of my words to influence his or her imagination.

3. Nod your headat the appropriate time. Many salesmen know about this “trick”, but misunderstand it and use it the wrong way. When someone nods their head, it has a subconscious effect on the other person in the conversation. Most salesmen don’t understand what this effect is, and they misuse it. When another person nods their head, they are giving their approvaloffering their agreement. The subconscious mind thinks that agreement and approval is being offered because of what its feeling. If you have a customer who is irritated, and you nod your head as you’re talking to them, they’re just going to become more irritated. On the other hand, if you have a customer who is happy and excited, and you nod your head, they are likely to become happier and more excited. When you ask for the sale, be sure your customer is in the right frame of mind, and reinforce that good frame of mind with a nod. You’ll be pleased with the results.

If you incorporate these three tips into your sales presentations, you’ll be able to take the results to the bank. I’m certain that you’ll enjoy that. If you make becoming a better salesman an obsession, you will take even more to the bank. The next step to becoming a better salesman is to work on your own subconscious, by seeing a hypnotherapist and/or using self-hypnosis. You’ll be able to affect the subconscious changes in yourself that are necessary to make you an elite salesmanand you can be very, very elite. Congratulations in advance on the excellent progress I know you will make when you use these techniques and work on your own subconscious mind.

Kyle B. Varner, CHt is a Clinical Hypnotherapist practicing in Annapolis, Maryland. He maintains a blog, http://www.mindchanginghypnosis.com, where you can download his free hypnosis recordings. He also offers online self-hypnosis coaching.

It is important for small-business owners to recognize these calls when they come in and make sure that they handle them properly because these will be future customers. Some small businesses, which fail to recognize these incoming calls may actually turn off the customer who has called and that potential customer may call their actual customer who has referred them. This is terrible in that it will prevent future referrals from the happy customer and these small businesses did not get the advantage of having a customer become a customer who called the phone.

It therefore makes sense to teach all of your employees at your company to recognize these calls when they come in and to treat the person who called in from a referral as an actual customer. It is important consider them as your best customer you’ve ever had, as they quite very well could become. I hope you’ll consider the philosophy of incoming telephone referrals and customer conversions in your business. Think of this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” – Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

There were rumors that the boss was a failed salesman, someone who got kicked upstairs. Sensing this negative atmosphere, the manager wonders what to do.

In the last article, Part II, we talked about his first option, just letting this whittling away of his stature occur, without comment.

The idea we considered is he doesn’t have to prove, nor does he have to be a great salesman to be a great sales manager. A major league manager such as Frank Robinson, doesn’t have to be able to play third base, anymore. He’s a manager today, and his role is different.

Let’s look at the sales manager’s next option: having a meeting, one on one, with the malcontent.

Always, its good to keep up with your crew, so there’s nothing wrong with having a private meeting. But, if your intention is to confront your detractor with your suspicions, you should have more than inferences and suppositions to go on.

You need proof, actually citing behaviors in which your salesperson has engaged that have been clearly derogatory and counterproductive to the team. Without proof, you’ll just seem paranoid, and sensing blood, this shark may intensify his attacks.

Should the manager call a meeting with all of his reps and discuss the matter, openly? I don’t think so.

Again, it seems paranoid to bare your suspicions to the group, and the very control you’re afraid of losing, may be further threatened by having a meeting.

Also, if you meet, and this precipitates an open conflict with your top seller, this may make the group sympathize with him, making him seem like the natural leader. That would be a big problem.

Should you do a “master’s demonstration,” like a sensei at a martial arts academy, demonstrating his selling skills to his troops? This tactic was used in the first article in this series, with positive effect, but it’s risky.

If your sales “moves” are rusty, you may fall on your face.

At the same time, it shows courage to get into the sparring ring again, so you might gain points this way.

I think sales managers should always keep their hand in selling, so they never get rusty. This enables them to keep up with the marketplace and to maintain rapport with their people.

So, reviewing all of our options, we can see that sometimes inaction, doing nothing directly, is the highest form of action.

At the same time, you don’t want your top producer bashing you, making it hard for you to lead. So, tune in better, gather more facts, before you act.

Then, have your private meeting, and try to “deputize” the detractor into helping the team. Offer him some special duties, with or without the promise of additional compensation, to channel his ambitions, constructively.

Also, during sales meetings, discuss some of the strategies you used to use as a seller, share your war stories, lionizing yourself. This will make you more credible, and short-circuit the thought that you aren’t the savvy sales master that we know you really are!

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone® and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC’s Annenberg School, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com.

Even in the traditional brick and mortar world of off-line sales, people need to touch and see a product before they have enough confidence to buy. That’s why stores like Sears and JC Penny do so much more walk-in business than catalog sales. In an online business, this consumer apprehension is intensified by not having a physical store, or in many cases even a phone number to turn to if a product doesn’t meet expectations.

Add to that the common fear many consumers have about credit card transactions in cyberspace, and it’s not hard to see that you need to put your prospective customers at ease if they’re to become buyers.

How can you make your customers feel that doing business with you is not a risky proposition? The answer is incredibly simple…offer a money back guarantee!

Let’s take a look at the up-side of offering a guarantee. First, it provides a statement of personal confidence in your product. To be blunt, if you lack confidence in your product – you shouldn’t be selling it anyway!

The same is true even if you’re marketing someone else’s product for a commission, or an affiliate program for a multi-level marketing sales program. If the parent company doesn’t eliminate risk by offering to refund fees within a clearly stated time frame, find a different program to market. You’ll be amazed how much easier it will be to sign up new affiliates if you eliminate the risk.

More on the up-side – A solid guarantee policy gives your enterprise a clear image of professionalism. After all, only a legitimate business would offer to give dissatisfied customers their money back, right?

There are so many entrepreneurial start-ups on the Net today, that many opportunity seekers are skeptical of any program giving the appearance of being a small home business. The assumption is: “They’re no bigger than I am, and may not be in business next month, so why risk my money with them?”

Offering a money back guarantee dispels the small entrepreneurial image, and alleviates skepticism more than you can imagine.

Now let’s take a look at the downside. If you offer a money- back guarantee, you’ll be deluged with refund requests, right?

This is only true if you’re selling something that is not as you describe it in your sales literature. If you’ve done an accurate job of explaining the features of your product to the customer before they make their purchase, there won’t be any surprises that will trigger their refund reflex. In other words, give them what they paid you, and they’ll be unlikely to complain about it.

Overall, the percentage of buyers asking for refunds from reputable online businesses is very low. A 10% return rate would be surprisingly high, and you would want to take a hard look at either your sales material, or your products themselves, to try to determine what was causing the dissatisfaction. Be sure you’re not promising something you aren’t delivering.

Of course, from time to time, you will probably get a refund request, people being generally a fickle breed. What to do? Process it immediately – no questions asked! Make it as painless for your customers to get a refund as you do for them to make a purchase. Stand behind your guarantee policy. Flaunt it – cheerfully take care of dissatisfied customers. Make it a pleasant experience, then request a testimonial about your guarantee policy…turn it into a positive part of your marketing literature.

Don’t be concerned with losses; they’ll be minimal. If you’re shipping hard goods, of course, wait until the customer returns the product before you process the refund. However, if you’re selling downloadable software or website access, you’d be hard-pressed to convince me that you experienced a measurable financial loss even if a customer dishonestly didn’t destroy the software they downloaded. With a website membership, of course, you should deactivate their password, but whatever you do, don’t let pettiness or greed cloud your judgment and delay prompt processing of refund requests.

You should try to seek out comments from dissatisfied customers as to the nature of their complaint, so that you can take any action necessary to improve your product, but don’t make this a condition of the refund. Send the refund notification in an e-mail, and then close by politely requesting comments as to where your product failed them.

A word of caution…DO NOT make your guarantee policy complex or vague…the cleaner and simpler, the better. Best is: “If you are dissatisfied with your purchase for any reason, we offer a 100% money-back, no questions asked, refund of your purchase price.” It is acceptable to set a time limit if you must, but make it reasonable. If it will take them a month to use and honestly evaluate your program, don’t limit the guarantee to a week.

Vague, unclear guarantees will place you under a blanket of suspicion, and will do more harm than good to your sales efforts. Leave the conditions out…simply accept ANY REASON, or even NO REASON, for customer dissatisfaction.

Don’t nitpick in your policy. Even if your credit card processing company doesn’t refund the service fee to your account, give the customer 100% of their money back. Losing a few dollars on a refund is far less costly than losing hundreds of sales with a convoluted refund policy.

The boosted sales that a liberal guarantee policy will give you far outweigh any minimal losses you might incur from processing infrequent refund requests.

There is simply no better way to increase sales than to make doing business with you a completely risk-free proposal for your customers. A guarantee is essential to a sound business plan.