I recently got a “thank-you” call from a man who read my new e-book Buying Facilitation.

“Boy,” he said, “this method sure helps me close more deals and make more money. Thanks!”

“Glad I could help. Is that all you’re looking for? To make more money?”

“What do you meanall? What else is there? Sales is about closing deals and making money, right?”

“I’m surprised you didn’t notice the value of becoming a trusted advisor, or how you can use the seller’s role as one of a servant-leader to lead your clients to discover their solutions quickly.”

“Well, I noticed all that. But it’s all in service of me closing deals and making money, right? I don’t mind doing it nicely if it gives me better results. But what’s sales about if my job isn’t about me making money?”

I’m wondering how many people out there still believe sales to be a job that is focused on making money? Or only about making money. All of us want to get paid fairly for what we do. The question is: how can we make money and make nice.

Most people get paid for doing a day’s work. But most sales people get paid for the results of their work, not necessarily for a day’s work. This leads to the tendency of sellers to have a different focus in their jobs than their non-sales colleagues: they often focus on ‘closing’ a sale rather than on the results of the interaction, or on ‘doing a deal’ rather than making sure the client has all their ducks in a row prior to making a purchase. As a result, sales practices and sellers can be seen as aggressive, pushy, eager to get immediate results, and less aware of the other person in the interaction.

What causes money, greed, manipulation, and self-interest to prevail at the expense of serving? What’s stopping sellers from using their jobs to promote respect, integrity, servant-leadership, collaboration, and trust - for their customers, for their companies, and for themselves? Why is there a belief that it’s not possible to serve and make money? To support and be aggressive? To be a trusted advisor and close rapidly?

I once began a Buying Facilitation

Tags: business ethics, company values, salesbusiness ethics, company values, sales

Share This

For most people, money makes the world go round and business bears that money. Businessmen will perhaps do anything just to achieve the ultimate goal of having a business, and that is to earn income. Net profit or income financially means a surplus of sales or revenues after deducting costs and expenses. Whether you are engage in profession, occupation, work or trade, you are in business and you speak income. When you earn an income you suffer taxes, the worst nightmare for every income earners. Income tax is your punishment of doing well in business. This sounds ridiculous but this is the reality, you pay when you earn. Because tax is legislative, noncompliance to this would results to crimes. This thing called income tax had already made billions of liars around the world. Some governments imposed taxes which are already too much to burden the flow of business. Others make tax laws that are already beyond the ability of taxpayers. However these facts must not result in the existence of enormous number of dishonest people in the world.

Ethics in business rarely exists nowadays. Perhaps it is because for most people, profit will come without the need of business ethics. This, I don’t agree. The word ethics is derived from the Greek word ethos, which means “character,” and from the Latin word mores, which means “customs.” According to the encyclopedia ethics is the branch of philosophy that defines what is good for the individual and for society and establishes the nature of obligations, or duties, that people owe themselves and one another. Maybe ethics is not needed to earn profit if you define profit or income as money. But deeply speaking, business is not just for money. Yes it is definitely for profit, but profit is not just financial profit. We need profit that will not just sustain our pocket or our stomach. Significantly, we also need profits that will feed our hearts and soul. Considering that we are great businessmen, we should extend our minds to this principle. We need business ethics to earn these high valued profits. We must be concerned to the virtue of our character and to the common good.

Your business is not just for the survival of your life on Earth but it can also be your road to the survival of your soul. If you’re in business and had a company, you can help your employees by providing them enough salaries and other benefits that will make their lives better. You can be honest and pay your exact tax for the government who will eventually use it for your country’s development. (Assuming your government is straight and not corrupt) But don’t mind them, be honest even others are not. We are talking here your soul survival and not theirs. You can also serve your customers by providing them their needs and giving them convenience. Customer care is so important for your customers as also important for your business to earn public trust and loyalty. If you build infrastructures for your company you contribute to the development of your place in terms of buildings and infrastructures. When you got ethics in business you practice fair business competition. Fair business competition is a challenge for every business to improve the qualities of their products and services, and the end benefits are to the consumers.

Doing business with clean conscience is doing business with good night sleeps. It is also doing business with gladness of your heart and soul. Gratitude will come to you and you will become a stress free businessman if you do business with ethics. These and other spiritual profits will straightly come to you and the good thing on this is you are not taxed on this kind of profits. As an extraordinary businessman, you do not only set your long-term goals for 10 years or for a life time. You must also consider eternity and set goals to achieve profits that will benefit your soul. You need profits that last forever, profits that will give us everlasting life and happiness, and profits that will earn us the key to heaven. These profits will benefits us in the short run, midterm run, long run and eternal run, as God is great from the beginning and unto the never-ending.

Do business and believe in God. Building our business in God’s place is like building it in rocks which are in great foundations. Let us be kind and grateful to our employees as they are our best assets. Let’s give them bread and they will give us a ham sandwich. Let us have huge care to our customers as they are our best revenue generators. Let’s give them good price, high quality products and best services and they will give us their respect and loyalty. Let us be fair to our competitors as they are our great motivators. Let us give them fair game and they will give us the true meaning of winning. Let us be thankful to our Father Almighty God as He is our greatest business partner. Let’s serve Him and He will give us joy and peace of mind.

Victorino Q. Abrugar is dedicated in spiritual
philosophy. He is the author of
TheOldMind.Com

Tags: : business, employees, ethics, expenses, god, importance, money, profit, sales, society: business, employees, ethics, expenses, god, importance, money, profit, sales, society

Share This

In today’s highly competitive economy, it is difficult to maintain a significant market advantage based on your professional skills alone. Developing trusting relationships with your clients is vital to your business success as well. No matter what business you are in, the most powerful value-added contribution you can make to any business relationship is the trust factor.

The trust factor is even more critical in today’s business climate with the level of trust in Corporate America continuing to be at an all-time low, and suspicion of “all things corporate” remaining on the rise. To make matters worse, large corporations and small businesses alike continue to use antiquated techniques, such as gizmos and gadgets, to try to win over new clients. When instead, they should be trying to address the heart of the matter by utilizing trust-building techniques that will most effectively resonate with consumers and new prospects.

Clients and prospects are in search of trust in their business relationships, but building trust and credibility does not happen overnight. To cultivate trust, it takes the risk of being open with clients and prospects. This enables them to perceive you as a real personone with strengths and weaknesses that come into play as the relationship develops. When trust is reciprocal, you will find that your confidence in others is rewarded by their support and reinforcement of what you also stand for as a business entity.

What is Trust

What is trust? Trust can be defined as a firm belief in the honesty of another and the absence of suspicion regarding his motives or practices. The concept of trust in business dealings is simple: Build on an individual’s confidence in you and eliminate fear as an operating principle.

Letting Go of Fear

Let go of fear, which restricts your ability to relate to others. Letting go frees you of behavioral constraints that can immobilize your emotional and professional development. Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of being hurt, fear of the unknownall these are roadblocks to developing and growing a trusting relationship with clients. Let go of your fear of losing an account or not having the right answers. Leave all your fears at the client or prospect’s doorstep.

Other critical steps in cultivating trust are knowing who you are and knowing your potential value to your clients. The relationship that forms because of this can have a tremendous impact on your sales. People don’t just buy from anyone. They buy from people they can trust. The rapport and credibility you can establish with the trust factor go a long way toward building a client’s confidence in your ability to meet his business needs.

Trust has both an active and a passive component in a business relationship. The active feeling of trust is confidence in the leadership, veracity, and reliability of the other party, based on a track record of performance.

The passive feeling of trust is the absence of worry or suspicion. This absence is sometimes unrecognized and frequently taken for granted in our most productive relationships.

Building Trust With Care

So how do you build trust with clients? First, you need to care about them. Obviously your clients care about your knowledge, expertise, and accomplishments. However, they care even more about the level of concern you have for them. Successful trust building hinges on four actions: engaging, listening, framing, and committing. The trust factor can be realized once we understand these components of trust and incorporate them in our daily lives.

Engaging clients and prospects occurs when you show genuine concern and interest in their business and its problems. Maintain good eye contact and body posture. Good eye contact signifies openness and honesty. And your body language and other forms of nonverbal communication speak volumes about your attitude toward them. By the same token, you want to be cognizant of your client’s or prospect’s eye contact and body language.

Listening with understanding and empathy is possible if you think client focus first.
Let the client tell his story. Put yourself in his shoes when you listen to his business concerns, purpose, vision, and desires. Show approval or understanding by nodding your head and smiling during the conversation. Separate the process of taking in information from the process of judging it. Just suspend your judgment and focus on the client.

Framing what the client or prospect has said is the third action in trust building. Make sure you have formed an accurate understanding of his problems and concerns. Confirm what you think you heard by asking open-ended questions such as “What do you mean by that?” or “Help me to understood the major production problems you are experiencing.” After you have clarified the problems, start to frame them in order of importance. By identifying the areas in which you can help the client, you offer him clarity in his own mind and continue to build his trust.

Committing is the final action for developing the trust factor. Communicate enthusiastically your plan of action for solving the client’s problems. Help the client see what it will take to achieve the end result. Presumably, what you have said up to this point has been important, but what you do nowhow you commitis even more important. Remember the old adage “Action speaks louder than words.” Show you want this client’s business long term. Complete assignments and projects on budget and on time. Then follow up with clients periodically to see how your partnership is faring.

In the final analysis, trust stems from keeping our word. If we say we will be there for our clients, then we should honor that commitment by being there. Trust results from putting the client’s best interest before our own, from being dependable, from being open and forthcoming with relevant information. It is impossible to overestimate the power of the trust factor in our professional lives. Truly, trust is the basis of all enduring, long-term business relationships.

Robert Moment is an innovative business strategist and author of ,”It Only Takes a Moment to Score” and upcoming book “Invisible Profits: The Power of Exceptional Customer Service“. Robert show entrepreneurs how to successfully build and grow profitable service-based small businesses. Visit http://www.howtostartyoursmallbusiness.com and download the FREE Special Report ” 17 Profitable Ways to Turn Your Ideas into Wealth.”

Tags: branding, communication, ethics, marketing, negotiation, sales, Small Businessbranding, communication, ethics, marketing, negotiation, sales, Small Business

Share This