Increase Your Sales by Max Garcia

This article is for the sales speakers out there. If you are trying to generate sales motivation through incentives and plain business speaking you need to re think your strategy. Incentives are great but if the ability is not there then no matter how much sales motivation your employees have your results will stay the same. Your sales speakers need to educate them and teach them sales techniques. They are used to the same old business speaking pitch about how much extra money they can make selling more product. Your sales motivation speakers need to show them the how.

I will give the sales speakers reading this a technique they can teach at the next seminar. I recently learned what I call the rejection technique from Master Peter Brusso. Peter is a master in the martial arts field, business speaking and marketing field. You can find him at infocard.cc. With the rejection technique it is basic reverse psychology. A client comes to you and says "I am interested in the investment house you have for sale". After making some small talk which is very important in business speaking, you say something like "have you ever done an investment deal like this?" "I would love to sell you the place but wouldn't want to put you in something you couldn't handle". People want what they can not have so many times when I state something like this the other person will immediately start justifying why they should be able to purchase the deal. This only enforces their want for what ever I am selling as they state the reasons the deal is right for them. In sales motivation I call this taking the person from being interested to wanting! If you are a sales speaker experiment with this next time you have to sell something to someone one on one.

Be Flexible in Business by Max Garcia

In the U.S. Marines, sometimes a leadership speaker will utilize a common phrase to keep the junior Marines motivated during times of uncertainty. That phrase is “Semper Gumbie” meaning, always flexible! This motivational leadership comes from the Marine Corps motto of “Semper Fidelis” or “Semper Fi” meaning always faithful. Being flexible is one of the most important leadership characteristics a leadership speaker should build on in any business. It never fails, every time there is a change in plans it is usually for the worst. When there is a change some leadership speaker will always crack a joke by saying “Semper Gumbie”. It is good motivational leadership but annoying at the same time. The reason for this humor is that no mission, task, or any daily work gets completed with out an annoying change.

One instance in Iraq our platoon got tasked with a mission that was supposed to take 72-96 hours. What this means to us is grab the bare minimum and leave everything else at the firm base. So now were talking maybe a sleeping bag or not, hygiene bag, minimal combat load of ammunition and a couple changes of clothes at the most. For such a short time out what is brought basically depends on how lazy you are that day. For some it may be just the clothes on their back depending on the leadership characteristics of those in charge.

Well, to make a long story short, after about four weeks we realized, just how flexible are job requires us to be. We started from the border of Syria and ended up going all the way to Al Fallujah with almost no parts, support, re-supply of ammunition, food, or clean clothes. Times like these challenged my motivational leadership and helped me to understand why Marines want to fight. We eventually made it back to the Syrian border to get showers and creature comforts after five weeks of 110 degree weather and nothing but each other. The moral of the story is that we were flexible for weeks making the mission a success. The same applies in business.

Motivation vs Brains in Sales by Max Garcia

Well, what would you rather have on your team, someone with knowledge or someone with lots of sales motivation but knows little about the sales business? In sales, we have several types of people, and each one of these people require different types of business speakers to unfold their potential through sales motivation seminars. I believe the ability or skill level lies within the sales motivation of that person. As always there are certain exceptions when it comes to level of education and learning ability. This is why a business speaker or trainer must know his or her audience ahead of time (we will talk more about that another time).
When it comes to selection for a billet in the sales department, some leaders select based on previous performance with total disregard for the sales motivation of that person. I used to work as a Drill Instructor at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina. For a short period of time my job was to identify recruits that were not physically strong enough to start recruit training and identify the challenged ones that still had potential. We would send the rest packing to physical conditioning platoon. Physical conditioning platoon kept them for several extra months until they either passed the physical requirements or quit. I would talk to each kid separately, and the first thing I would do is ask them if they would rather go home at this point or go to physical conditioning platoon knowing they would be in boot camp longer. Some recruits would instantly state they want to go back home to Mommy, while others will violently yell “No Sir” stating that they will stay longer if needed. My psychological trick was that the ones who genuinely seemed like they wanted to be a Marine got to come to my platoon to train, while the ones that wanted to just quit got dropped to physical conditioning platoon because I did not want their lack of motivation. Many times once properly instructed the recruits who came to my platoon uncovered their talent and ended up becoming good Marines. At the same time some that came in physically fit were unsuccessful because they had no motivation.
The same goes when sales speakers try to improve a company through sales motivation. Professional athletes don’t become the top five percent of the sport they play naturally. They have to work extremely hard for years and they have to have the right people help them get recognized. Many of them took lessons or received coaching there whole lives. That sounds like learning to me. I could care less how much “brain power” someone has if they don’t have a strong work ethic and drive. Whatever and whoever it is, good sales speakers can teach them if they really want to learn. You may want to think twice before hiring someone just because the have a certain qualification.

Preventive Maintinance Leadership by Max Garcia

In my opinion there is no different level of difficulty between processing a do or don’t do order, the difficulty is within the business speaker. The only difficulty is if the person doing the business speaking for upper management forgets or doesn’t know exactly what needs to happen. It is difficult to remember to pass every step to completing the task but if you forget something specific then you can not complain when it is not completed the way you would do it. That is the only difficulty in the “do instructions”. It is a motivational leadership failure if you only state what you desire as an end result and then complain about how it was achieved.
The business speaker or leader needs to do what I call “Preventive Maintenance”. If you know there is a project coming up then you need to start writing down all the things that helped you achieve or not achieve results from before. Then you must give a quick brief. Your brief should include what specifics you want to see happen. Without focusing too much on the negative you should firmly state the things you don’t want while maintaining your motivational leadership style. This will keep your people on your side. I will give you an example.
Let’s say you are cleaning up your work area and checking your paper work for an inspection of upper level management. While business speaking you can not just simply state, “our inspection is coming up”. “The place needs to be immaculate and the paper work needs to be perfect”. A good business speaker for the boss will do preventive maintenance by stating, “every desk needs to be cleaned free of dust, loose papers, pictures, and all trash taken out”. If desk are your major concern, then you know you just covered it and everyone should be taking note of what you just said. Next you might want to cover paper work by stating “everyone needs to check his or her own log book for mathematical errors and then hand it in to the shift managers for further editing”. Then you can state what you do not want as long as your tone is of a motivational leadership style.
An example of that would be mentioning that how you don’t want to see any white out on the pages or pen scribbles. Now you have just covered what you want and what you don’t want. You may also want to mention that if anyone can think of anything else feel free to bring it up to your shift manager. Now, your people are thinking outside “the box”. If you forget something they will use their own initiative because you used motivational leadership while asking their opinion. The last thing a boss ever wants if for his business speaker to run a dictatorship where they act like robots because then you have no room for error.
If during your inspection a desk has outdated paper work and some of the paper work is sloppy you have a solid ground to informally counsel your employees with anger. If you just said “I want the place cleaned up and all the paper work straight”, then you have no room to counsel anyone because you did not specify.
Keep in mind that it is not any easier while business speaking to process a due instruction, it is just easier for people to complain that it isn't the way they wanted it. It takes guts to get up in front of your people and clearly articulate the objective at hand (Captain Handon 1999).