I haven’t had a cold (well maybe one) in close to 40 years. While I attribute much of that to my diet (vegetarian) I also think that the following affirmation, which I wrote 40+ years ago, has helped as well.
I usually recite this one (like a mantra) while walking, running or working out. Then whenever a cold tries to get me I find it coming into my head and the symptoms go away.
Try it; it is: “The infinite God within me created me, and now perfects all my bodily organs, bones, tendons and tissues, in divine order”.

Professional:
“Exhibiting a courteous, conscientious, and generally businesslike manner in the workplace.”
-Webster

Amateur:
“One who engages in a pursuit, study, science, or sport as a pastime rather than as a profession.”
-Webster

All people get to decide which one they want to and will be. Professionals gain more respect, achieve greater results, and make more money, both in the same amount of time; 24 hours a day.

Being professional does not require any particular level of education or experience. It is all a state of mind.

Here’s a good one. In a restaurant recently a wait person asked me if I would like some more coffee. I had about a quarter cup left, and said, “You can warm this up, thank you”. He took my cup to the kitchen, micro-waved the existing coffee and brought it back to me, “warmed up”. Actually it was now too hot to drink.
Be careful what you ask for, it just may be taken literally.

This story was sent to the salespeople at Curtis Wilson Cost Gallery on Maui
http://www.costgallery.com

Many years ago, I had a tennis-lesson-from-hell at the Maui Country Club. Steve, the club pro, came up to the edge of the net and asked me to hit the one stroke I was absolutely certain I could return successfully within his reach every single time. He would hit it back to me and we would count how many hits we could accumulate before missing a ball. He fed me a ball and we started rallying and reached 10 or 15 before I missed one. Steve re-approached the net and said to me again “hit the one ball you know you can hit each and every time.” The next rally got to 30 or so before I missed another. Steve once again approached the net but this time he raised his voice. “Hit the one ball YOU KNOW you can get back safely!” His tone was a little unnerving and I started to wonder what gave him the right to speak to me like that. After all, I was his client, not his subordinate. Our next rally got to about 35 hits before I hit another a little out of his reach. All of a sudden, Steve threw down his racket and marched up to the net and yelled at me. “CURTIS, HIT THE ONE YOU KNOW YOU CAN HIT BACK SAFELY EVERY SINGLE TIME!

I stood there completely aghast as he walked back to pick up his racket. He turned and calmly fed me another ball. I was beside myself. I could not believe the nerve of this guy. I decided that I would report his abuse to the club’s board of directors. When the ball reached me I hit it so focused on not missing another one that I hit a safe little dink, just to make sure it went back to him. I did this again and again, focusing and concentrating on my footwork, bending my knees, stepping through the ball making absolutely sure I got it back to him. We reached well over a hundred hits. At that point Steve grabbed the ball out of the air. “Exactly! That is exactly what I’m after. That focused little dink you’re hitting is the one I’m looking for. You need to be aware that you possess it.

That’s the shot you need to rely on. It’s the absolute minimum and essential shot that will get you out of trouble.

I walked away intent upon reporting him to the club officials. He had clearly crossed the line. On the other hand I DID learn what he meant for me to learn. There is a place to go to, mentally, which has a different focus. I didn’t know that I possessed a shot which I can hit every time if I focused and concentrated on removing all the unnecessary variables. I would not have found it if Steve hadn’t taken it to such extremes. In my quiver of tennis strokes, this is the one on which my game is now based.

My motive in telling this story has to do with the Boss Card goals in the Morning Report. When you set your Boss Card goals, you need to use the same strategy.

Boss Cards are an instrument to HELP you, not demoralize you. If they are demoralizing you, they are not set right. Set your goal at something you KNOW you can daily attain. It’s okay for it to be low, but it MUST BE REACHED EVERY SINGLE MONTH. Remember, it’s an average. You might make up a few bad days with one good day. But it is vital that you commit to a number and maintain it.

It’s also equally important to use the diagnostics Ron Martin provides to improve your performance to higher levels, such as the Sales City Express charts.

Everything yields to focused concentration and attainable goals. It’s a proven system you can rely on. The charts are illuminating if you use them, but they must be used to do any good.

Ask others for tips and advice. Make Proactive No Pressure Selling the focus of your time at work. Read a chapter in the book before starting each shift. Rehearse the steps with every customer.

Set reasonable and reachable goals and commit to them.

Curtis

An affirmation is a statement that you make to yourself over and over; so many times that it sinks down into your subconscious and becomes reality.

Affirmations Work! Here’s one that I wrote in about 1970, and continue to say to myself to this day, mostly while out walking or exercising.

“God supplies all my needs now; infinite intelligence guides me to the health and the wealth and success that are mine, deep down inside me.”

Borrow mine, or write your own, but try it. The affirmation will flash into your mind in a time of need.

The first time that I saw Retail Selling Made Easy with a tattered cover, I was horrified and replaced it. I have since come to see it is a “good thing”.
These books are not “museum pieces”, so when I see one like this I now treasure it.

Occasionally I will see one of my books on someone’s bookshelf, and can’t help myself from asking a few questions. I am oftentimes amazed at how little recall there was, and am then embarrassed that I asked. People tend to read a book, put it on the bookshelf, and then say, “I read that”.

While that may be okay for a novel, a self help book requires more. Maybe a second read, or some highlighted sections, or some notes in the white space (I provided a lot of that).
When I got this e-mail below from Rod Newbound in Mount Vernon, Washington, I was deeply touched and asked his permission to share parts of it on this blog. He gladly provided that permission, so here it is:

Dear Ron,

A friend of mine suggested I get your book, Success Made Easy, so I managed to find it in Hawaii and have read almost half.

Your approach is so different from all the mumbo-jumbo out there. I really appreciate it. In front of me on my desk, I have the words, “What can I do right now, this minute, to create more success?” Yesterday, after writing it down on a red note card, I began applying it.
Frankly, I was quite amazed at how my subconscious took over and directed me all day. The ideas just kept flooding out. I could hardly work fast enough to keep up!

I have taken a look at your website, and will be ordering your other books very soon. When you asked what I do, I had no idea our interests were so similar.
Kind regards,

Rod Newbound
Direct Marketing Consultant
Skagit Profit Systems
Mount Vernon, WA
360-707-4158

Nobody likes hearing the word “No”, especially salespeople. “Rejection” is painful, and most people will go to great lengths to avoid hearing it. They will even accept it to keep from hearing it. People in nightclubs fear asking an attractive person to dance, and consequently fail to get a dance. Salespeople avoid prospective customers that they fear won’t buy. They don’t get the sale.

When you master the art of turning “No” into “No, not yet” you will get more dances and make more sales. In retail customers will say, “I’m just looking” merely to buy some time before dealing with the salesperson. If the salesperson hears that as, “No”, nothing else is likely to happen. In outside sales, some customers say, “I’ll get back to you” when the reality is they do not intend to. When salesperson knows that and say’s, Okay”, the presentation and sale are over.

It’s up to the salesperson to make the switch from, “No” to “No, not yet”. To do that means that you must be willing to hear, “No” if in fact that’s the truth. Pressing for a “Yes”, when “No” is certain you will turn the customer off to you. The secret is pretending that the customer said, “No, not yet”, remove the pressure and then search for the real reason why it is not “Yes”.

Use what I call the “Okay but…” method to make this transition. Say something like, “Okay, but MAYBE this just isn’t the right one for you. What is it that MIGHT NOT be right?” You will be amazed at how many times you will hear the customer say, “Well, to tell you the truth…” Yes, buyers are liars. When you get the true objection out, you can many times overcome it with another size, a different item, or a lower price point. In the outside sales situation you could say, “Okay, but perhaps this is not the best time to explore all of the options, when could we meet again?”

Don’t buy, “I’m just looking”; everyone is looking, but not JUST looking. Don’t accept “I want to think about it”, without finding out what it is that the customer really needs to think about. Be willing to hear, “No” and you will be surprised at how many times you will hear, “Yes”.

FACTS:

You don’t need to speak Japanese to sell to the Japanese!
Japanese students today must take 6 years of English to graduate from High School.
Anyone under 40 (approx.) has had major exposure to English.
The older the person, the less practiced the English is.
Many Japanese hide their English abilities for 2 big reasons:

1. They are not comfortable with their pronunciation, and do not want to embarrass themselves.

2. They can understand you, but you can’t understand them. Nice buying edge.

Your goal with this program is to get your Japanese customers to admit to their understanding of English, at least a little bit, (Sukoshi). You can achieve this by demonstrating your interest in their language, and your willingness to mispronounce it.

To help you, I offer what I call Hauole Phonetics, in parenthesis.

It all starts with the GREETING…The first impression in Japan, for customers is a greeting at the door with “IRRASSHAIMASE”, (ear-ah-shy-maw-say), meaning, “welcome to our store”. This is good to know, however (unless you are Japanese), your initial greeting should be in English. You do not want to sound patronizing.

In Hawaii say, “Aloha”, they will have fun returning the greeting, and you have already begun to establish communication.

You can now (if you want to) add to “Aloha” with a follow up comment, in Japanese, as clumsy as you might say it.

OPTIONAL GREETING ADDITIONS:

Welcome IRRASSHAIMASE (pronounced> ear-ah-shy-mah-say)
Good Morning OHA YO GOZAIMASU (pronounced> ohio-go-zye-moss)
Good Afternoon KONNICHIWA (pronounced> cone-eech-chi-wah)
Good Evening KONBANWA (pronounced> cone-bon-wah)

Your first 2 Japanese phrases to learn are:

1.) Do you understand English? - EIGO GA WAKARIMASU KA? (pronounced> Egg-oh-gah-wa-car-eee- mas-ka)
Nine times out of ten your customer will say, “Sukoshi” (a little bit). Then you say:

2.) I don’t understand Japanese - NIHONGO GA WAKARIMASEN (pronounced> knee-hon-go-gah-wah- car-eee-moss-sen )
Nine times out of ten your customer will laugh, and communication has begun.

Using these two phrases will force welcome (and fun) communication and establish which language will be used. Any other Japanese phrases you can learn will serve to add to this experience and your communication, but none are necessary beyond this point with most customers.

Japanese travelers come to Hawaii, and other U.S. Resort areas in huge numbers, spend 5 times what other travelers spend, and do it in less than half the time. Resort retail salespeople owe it to themselves and their stores to learn how to sell to the Japanese.

The first step is an understanding of some basic facts that attribute greatly to the huge amounts spent by our Japanese visitors.

The next step will be how to align yourself to successfully sell to the Japanese. Some companies exist on Japanese sales, some others can’t seem to crack the market even though they may sell very similar products at fair prices. None of this is coincidental.

1. The Japanese government encourages worldwide travel to its citizens, Hawaii and other U.S. Resorts are seeing increasing numbers of Japanese visitors.

2. Today’s visitors are more affluent than in the past. They are proud of their success and ability to travel the world. They express this pride in what they wear, where they go, and what they buy.

3. Honeymoon season is March through June, even though most were married in Japan before December.
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