Self Image In Selling

In this concise write up, we would like to highlight and show why your self image is a key part of your personality:

Your self-image is the way you see yourself and think about yourself. It is often called your "inner mirror." You look into this mirror in every situation to see how you should perform on the outside. You always behave on the outside in a manner consistent with the picture you have of yourself on the inside.

How Do You See Yourself

For example, if you see yourself, as calm, confident and competent in any aspect of selling, when you are engaged in that activity, you will feel calm, confident and competent. You will be positive and happy. You will perform well and get excellent results.

If, for any reason, it doesn't go well at that time, you will throw it off and dismiss it as a temporary situation. Your self-image is clear. In your mind's eye you see yourself as good and capable in that area, and nothing can interfere with your mental picture.

Change Your Self Image

The most rapid improvements in sales results come from changing your self-image as we'll discuss later in this chapter. The moment that you see yourself differently, you behave differently as well. And because you are behaving differently, you get different results.

My Own Story

Some years ago, when I was involved in Multi level marketing, selling one product or the other from house to house, office to office, and lane to lane, I would end my presentation by giving the prospect of a booklet outlining the benefits from my wares Really, my self-image was such that I could not bring myself to ask the prospect to make a buying decision.

All day long, I would go from office to office giving my presentation, and well reharsed advertising strategy and leaving a little book with descriptions to read. And as you might imagine, I was not making any sales. When I called people back after they had time to think about it, they would invariably say that they were not interested.

The Turning Point

I was getting desperate and too bored. I was living from hand to mouth at that time. Although I was seeing lots of prospects, I was making very few sales. Then I had a revelation that changed my career, and which improved my sales too. I realized that it was my fear of asking for the order that was causing all my problems. It was not my prospects. It was me. I needed to change my self-image and thereby change my behavior if I wanted results to improve.

Make A Decision
The very next morning, I made up my mind for better day's performance. The size of the stock surprisingly crashed down when I had barely completed my presentation, the prospect would know everything that he needed to know to make a decision for a purchase. There was no benefit or advantage of leaving material behind or giving the prospect several days to think about it.the desicion was there already.

At my very first call, and I still remember it, when I had finished my presentation, the prospect said, "Let me think it over." I smiled and told him that I did not make call backs because I was too busy, and then I said, "You know everything you need to know to make a decision right now. Why don't you just take it?" I remember him shrugging his shoulders and saying, "OK. I'll take it. How would you like to be paid?"

Double Your Income

I walked out of that office on a cloud. That very day I tripled my sales. That week, I sold more than anyone else in the company. By the end of the month, they had made me the sales manager with 17 people under me. I went from making one or two sales per week to making ten or fifteen sales per week.

I went from worrying about money to a large salary with an override on the activities of all my salespeople. My sales life took off and, with few exceptions, it never stopped. And the turning point was that conscious choice to modify my self-image and make it more consistent with the results I wanted rather than the results that I was getting.

Action Exercises:

Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, begin to see yourself the way you want to be. See yourself as strong, reliable, confident, competent and professional in every way. The person you see is the person you will be.

Second, identify an area of selling where your own ideas about yourself and the situation are holding you back. You always perform on the outside the way you see yourself on the inside.

Best of luck and happy reading!

Live In The Solution

In her outstanding book, "Choose the Happiness Habit", Pam Golden writes: "Take the story of two brothers who are twins. One grows up to be an alcoholic bum. The other becomes an extremely successful businessman. When the alcoholic is asked why he became a drunk, he replies, "My father was a drunk." When the successful businessman is asked why he became successful, he says, "My father was a drunk." Same background. Same upbringing. Very different choices."

The brothers chose different thoughts about the identical experience. Those thoughts over the years shaped the circumstances they now find themselves in.

There was a time in my life when I chose to think about challenges and obstacles as just more of the "bad luck" I seemed to attract. Ever hear the expression "when it rains, it pours?" That was my constant mantra when others asked me how things were going. So what do you think I got more of? If you answered "RAIN," you're correct!

Bob Proctor says, "you're either living in the problem or you're living in the solution." Now, when I'm confronted with what I used to think was a negative situation, I use a different thought process. I force myself to replace those negative thoughts that creep in with positive thoughts about how I might solve the "problem." Sometimes I'll take a notepad and just start jotting down ideas that might be a solution. At the same time, my thoughts are focused on the possible lessons I might learn from the situation so that I might profit from the experience in the future.

If you've guessed that it doesn't "rain" as much in my life as it used to, you're correct again. In fact, most days it's a beautiful, cloudless and sunny day! Only occasionally now do I get any rain, and it's good rain, the kind that makes living things grow.

And that's worth thinking about and happy reading.

Potentialize Your Opportunities

I remember watching the movie "Dead Poet's Society" when it was first released in the theatres. Robin Williams's character is a professor who wants his students to think for themselves, so he makes them stand on top of their desks to view things in a different way. That really stuck with me.

When you think about it, people hardly ever look at the world through their own eyes. They get their information filtered through the eyes of others, whether they're the eyes of the media, politicians, friends or family. But what looks like one thing to someone may look totally different to someone else. To really see what's going on in the world, to see what opportunities exist for us, we have to see the world through our own eyes in our own way. We all need to recognize and potentialize opportunities when we see them.

What do I mean by potentialize? When something has potential it has power, it expresses possibility, it is influential and effective. As we go through each day we should be on the lookout for any situation that expresses possibility. Any situation.

To attain the success you desire you have to recognize possibility everywhere and then stretch and flex your mind to create million-dollar ideas. And you're not limited to just one. The more you practice seeing the possible in daily life, the better you will become. Then you take those small possibilities and potentialize them and create great monetary abundance.

We all have the ability to potentialize opportunities and create phenomenal wealth. And the amazing thing is that there are multiple possibilities for potentalizing in every situation! Just because someone comes up with a new way to do something doesn't mean that there isn't yet another way to do it.

We have each been blessed with individual characteristics and abilities that no one else has. We each have our own special way of doing things. And that means we each have the ability to potentialize in our own unique way. 'Be grateful for your problems, for they stimulate an 'I-can-solve-it' new attitude.' Mark Victor Hansen

The Science Of Success Achievement

In his all time best selling book, Think And Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill mentions in his first chapter that throughout the book he will be referring many times to The Carnegie Secret. He said he would not tell you what that secret is, but when you are ready, it will jump off the page and into your brain. He said, When the Student is ready – the master will appear. The doors will open. The lights will turn green. The ideas will come. The money will come. The people will be there to help you.

After some time of quiet reflective and medidative thought, here ae what i consider the ---- 'Carnegie Secret '

1. Have a definite major purpose.

What is the most important thing you would like to accomplish in your lifetime? Try to define it in one paragraph, even if you have to keep rewriting it a hundred times until it gets as clear as possible. It has to be the most important thing in your life. Mahatma Gandhi’s definite major purpose was to win independence for India from their British rulers. He succeeded. Dr. Martin Luther King’s was equality and the end of oppression for black people. Doctor Jonas Salk’s was to find the cure and end for polio. Thomas Edison’s was the incandescent light bulb. What is yours?

If you don’t currently have what you feel is a definite major purpose, then have a definite major purpose to find your definite major purpose. It has to be something you want so bad that you think about it all of the time.

2. Be willing to stake your entire existence on achieving It.

Don’t Quit. There Are Many Starters In Life, But Very Few Finishers – When The Going Gets Tough They Quit. A person with a definite major purpose never gives up – no matter how long and tough the road is; instead, they become more determined. Jack London was rejected over 600 times before he finally sold his first piece of writing. Thomas Edison actually failed over 9,999 times before he perfected the incandescent light bulb, and over 5,000 times before he perfected the world’s first phonograph record player. There will be times when everything in you will tell you to quit – to stop trying, but if you hang in there, eventually, you will – you must succeed. Quitters never win and winners never quit.

Persistence is the power to hold on in spite of everything - to endure. It’s the ability to face defeat repeatedly without giving up—to push on even in the face of great difficulty or danger. Persistence means taking pains to overcome every obstacle, to do all that is necessary to reach your goals. You win, because you refuse to become discouraged by your defeats. Those who conquer are those who endure.

3. Keep intensifying your desire.

There are many “firemen” in life that will come along and try to put your fire of desire out. They will give you all kinds of reasons why your idea or goal won’t work and tell you to give it up, forget it, or tell you “You can’t do it.” You have to become an Arsonist. An arsonist sets fires. Every morning when you wake up you have to re-light and re-build the intensity of your fire of desire. You have to eat it, sleep it, walk it, talk it, and concentrate on it until it becomes a red-hot flaming, burning, obsessional desire that will eventually mow down all of the opposition you will face throughout each day.

If you don’t, your Sizzle of desire will fizzle down to nothing. I’m not suggesting that you stop talking to or seeing your family and friends – what I’m saying is to keep focused day and night, seven days a week. This will bring into play: The law of harmonious attraction. Your burning desire becomes a magnet. You will attract that which you need; the ideas and plans, the money you need, and the people you need to help you. They will eventually gravitate toward your desire.

4. Have Bulldog Determination And Perseverance That Will Eventually Mow Down All Opposition.

Expect lots of problems, adversities, and discouragement along the way. Go around it – go over it – go under it – or dig a hole through it – but don’t ever turn back. Make your Definite Major Purpose the dominating thought in your mind. It is a known fact that people who have had great achievement – formed the habit of making an “obsession” of their Definite Major Purpose. Andrew Carnegie said to put all of your eggs in one basket and then watch the basket.

Andrew Carnegie’s definite major purpose, which he wrote down at an early age and kept in his desk, was to earn as much money as he can in life and then, in the end, to set up the Carnegie Foundation to give it all away to worthy causes. Even after his death long ago, the Carnegie Foundation is still giving away millions every year to help mankind.


Think And Grow Rich is so powerful that it’s the kind of book you have to read very slowly and carefully, many times until it becomes a part of your life and habits. I have been reading the book every year since i came in contact with it in 1997. Each year I pull it back off the shelf and let it fire me up for the achievement of my new goals for the year.

Well, let me say, i'll be giving you the test of grabbing that book for good. it still has much to offer for meaningfully successful achievement especially in times of crisis and challenge.

Happy Reading...

Self Improvement and Self Growth

Nowadays the terms- self-improvement, self-growth and self-help have become popular. We find many books about these subjects and many websites too. It seems that people are turning inside to find the solution to their problems. They seek knowledge, techniques, workshops, lectures and teachers who can show them the way. People begin to understand that self improvement and self growth improve the quality of life.

The subconscious mind is one of the major keys to self-improvement and self-growth. By changing the contents of the subconscious mind you change your habits, behavior and attitudes. This is brought about by thinking, meditation, visualization and affirmations.

The process of inner change requires inner work. It is not enough to read, you have to practice what you read, and this needs time and effort. There is no such thing as instant self improvement. Any inner change takes time, and there must be motivation, desire, ambition, perseverance and dedication. Outer and inner resistance and opposition must be taken into account too. Upon starting any self improvement program, most people usually encounter inner resistance that come from their old habits and their subconscious mind, and also resistance and opposition from the people around them.

The desire to change, build new habits and improve must be strong enough to resist any laziness, desire to give up and the ridicule or opposition from family, friends or colleagues.

Let me tell you something about myself. I have been drawn to self-improvement techniques from an early age, especially from the expanded nature of my family circle... I have regarded them as a source for inner strength, happiness and a better life. One of the most useful and effective techniques that I have discovered all these while was learning from the way people behaved and acted in various situations. I watched people's behavior, and looked inside me to see if I behaved in the same way under the same conditions.

When I found some traits of character or certain kind of behavior that I did not like, I examined myself to see if I possessed them too. If I did, I visualized and rehearsed in my mind a different sort of behavior. In my mind's eye I saw myself with the opposite traits of character. I visualized myself in situations, where I manifested the new behavior.

When I encountered traits of character or behavior that I liked, I used to think about their advantages and benefits and their importance in my life. Here too, I used visualization and affirmations and endeavored to act in this way in daily life.

In this way I have learned and benefited a lot from the behavior and actions of the people around me, at work, at home, in the street and everywhere else, from people in real life, and from watching people on the screen. It was never for the purpose of judging them or taking advantage of them, but for learning how to act, react and behave in a better way. This process had another benefit. It increased the knowledge about how the mind and thoughts influence the behavior and actions of people.

How can you too take advantage of this technique for self improvement and growth?

1. Look around you and watch how people behave in various circumstances. Watch the people you meet at home, work, at the supermarket, on the bus, train and on the street. Watch and learn also from people interviewed on TV, and also from movies.

2. Watch how people talk, walk, and react, and how they are treated by others.

3. Pay attention to the way people use their voice and how they react to others' voices. Watch how you feel and act when people shout or speak softly. Watch what happens when people get angry, restless and upset and what happens if they are calm and relaxed.

4. If you do not like what you see, analyze what and why you do not like it, and then analyze your own behavior to find out whether you behave in the same way. Be honest and impartial in your analysis.

5. If you find that you possess some traits that you do not like, affirm to yourself frequently that every time this happens you are going to become conscious of this behavior, actions or reactions, and endeavor to avoid behaving in that way.

6. Play in your mind a mental scene of how you would like to behave. Repeat it several times a day, every day.

7. When you detect a sort of behavior or character traits you like and desire to possess, try to act in a similar way. Here too, visualize several times each day a scene, where you act and behave in that different way.

8. You can also decide to change some habit and behavior patterns and develop new ones, because you believe they are necessary and beneficial, even without seeing them in others first.

9. Think and visualize over and over again in your mind how you would like to act and behave. Constantly remind yourself of the changes you desire to make, and strive to act according to them. Each time that you find yourself acting according to your old habit, remember your decision to change and improve, and act accordingly.

10. Do not be disappointed or frustrated if you do not attain fast results. It does not matter how many times you fail or forget to behave as you desired. Persist in your efforts and never give up, and you will begin to see how you and your life improve.

There are many self improvement and self growth techniques, but the one described here is simple, effective and easily performed.
Happy Reading!

Be An Optimist at All Times

Everyone wants to be physically healthy. You want to be mentally healthy as well. The true measure of “mental fitness” is how optimistic you are about yourself and your life.
In this article, you learn how to control your thinking in very specific ways so that you feel terrific about yourself and your situation, no matter what happens.
Control Your Reactions and Responses…There are three basic differences in the reactions of optimists and pessimists. The first difference is that the optimist sees a setback as temporary, while the pessimist sees it as permanent.
The optimist sees an unfortunate event, such as an order that falls through or a sales call that fails, as a temporary event, something that is limited in time and that has no real impact on the future. The pessimist, on the other hand, sees negative events as permanent, as part of life and destiny.
Isolate the Incident…The second difference between the optimist and the pessimist is that the optimist sees difficulties as specific, while the pessimist sees them as pervasive.
This means that when things go wrong for the optimist, he looks at the event as an isolated incident largely disconnected from other things that are going on in his life.
See Setbacks as Temporary Events…For example, if something you were counting on failed to materialize and you interpreted it to yourself as being an unfortunate event, but something that happens in the course of life and business, you would be reacting like an optimist.
The pessimist, on the other hand, sees disappointments as being pervasive. That is, to him they are indications of a problem or shortcoming that pervades every area of life.
Don’t Take Failure Personally…The third difference between optimists and pessimists is that optimists see events as external, while pessimists interpret events as personal.
When things go wrong, the optimist will tend to see the setback as resulting from external factors over which one has little control.
If the optimist is cut off in traffic, for example, instead of getting angry or upset, he will simply downgrade the importance of the event by saying something like, “Oh, well, I guess that person is just having a bad day.”
The pessimist on the other hand, has a tendency to take everything personally. If the pessimist is cut off in traffic, he will react as though the other driver has deliberately acted to upset and frustrate him.
Remain Calm and Objective…The hallmark of the fully mature, fully functioning, self-actualizing personality is the ability to be objective and unemotional when caught up in the inevitable storms of daily life.
The superior person has the ability to continue talking to himself in a positive and optimistic way, keeping his mind calm, clear and completely under control.
The mature personality is more relaxed and aware and capable of interpreting events more realistically and less emotionally than is the immature personality.
As a result, the mature person exerts a far greater sense of control and influence over his environment, and is far less likely to be angry, upset, or distracted.
Take the Long View…Look upon the inevitable setbacks that you face as being temporary, specific and external.
View the negative situation as a single event that is not connected to other potential events and that is caused largely by external factors over which you can have little control.
Simply refuse to see the event as being in any way permanent, pervasive or indicative of personal incompetence of inability.
Resolve to think like an optimist, no matter what happens. You may not be able to control events but you can control the way you react to them.
Action Exercises:
Now, here are three actions you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, remind yourself continually that setbacks are only temporary, they will soon be past and nothing is as serious as you think it is.
Second, look upon each problem as a specific event, not connected to other events and not indicative of a pattern of any kind. Deal with it and get on with your life.
Third, recognize that when things go wrong, they are usually caused by a variety of external events. Say to yourself, “What can’t be cured must be endured,” and then get back to thinking about your goals, for even in the middle of a lonely and abandoned desert, there's an o-a-s-i-s!

Keeping a Positive Attitude in Tough Times

Times are tough, and 2009 appaers to be tougher, huh?. We are constantly being bombarded with negative thoughts. There is a financial crisis that is being compared to The Great Depression. The value of investments has dropped precipitously. It is an election year that seems to bring out the worst in candidates and is filled with mud slinging and negative campaigning. There are threats to our security throughout the world.
With all of this going on around us, how do we maintain a positive attitude that is so important to long term success? There are several principles that help guide us through the day-to-day difficulties that we face and to maintain a positive outlook.
First, the only way to navigate through the obstacles and bumps in the road that we face, is to have a long term vision of what we want to accomplish and a good plan on how we are going to get there. Henry Ford said “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal”. Setting and achieving daily goals is essential to building confidence and having a positive outlook towards the future.
Second, expose yourself to positive thoughts every day. Positive thoughts create energy while negative thoughts destroy energy. Read inspirational stories. Tune out the negative news and listen to the positive. Utilize affirmations. Make a list of everything that you are thankful for and read it regularly.
We have a choice of how we focus our energy. We can focus on the past, the present, or the future. While we can always learn from the past so we don’t repeat the same mistake in the future, dwelling on the past is unproductive. Second guessing past decisions doesn’t change the outcome. We all go through life making mistakes that we wish we had not made. There is no value in continually playing the “should have” or “could have” game.
While spending an inordinate amount of time and energy replaying the past is unproductive, so is spending too much time worrying about the future. Sure, it is important to set goals and have an idea of the direction that you want to go. But ,in the scheme of things, we actually have very little control over the future.
The most productive time is spent living in the present. In reality, the only thing we really can control is what we are doing right now. I have always said that time management really comes down to making moment by moment decisions about what we are doing. A positive outlook comes from having the confidence that we are doing the best we can right now given the circumstances that we are in and moving forward.
Finally, to keep today’s events in perspective, some headlines from Time magazine in the 1970’s can be of help.
- War on Terror (referring to bombing on Pan Am plane)- Mid-east Violence- Social Security- Weak U.S. Dollar- Stagnant Stock Market- Personal Debt- Federal Deficit- Corporate Fraud- Housing Bubble- Gas Prices
There is some comfort to know that we have been through similar challenges in the past and we’ll get through the current ones as well. Think positive and look for opportunities for even in the forsaken lonely hot desert, there is an Oasis.