Wade and Keri Abed

"We first make our habits, and then our habits make us."  John Dryden There are 12 habits we encourage you to develop. Keep these visible and consistently work to develop them. 1. Wake up employed!   Each day have a sufficient number of appointments set on a favorable basis, in your marketplace.   2. Believe in total preparation.   This creates confidence in your prospects and clients and they feel good about doing business with you. 3. Picture yourself as a problem-solver.   Listen and learn what they want, then talk about solutions.   4. Hone your probing and listening skills.   Learning to listen paves the way to asking the right questions.   5. Give the buyer something to say "Yes" too.   Find a group of questions that you can ask that gives the buyer an opportunity to respond with "yes."   6. Sell what you own.   You cannot sell what you do not own.   7. Narrow your focus.   You can help people in many different areas, but focus on

Our business in life is not to get ahead of others but to get  ahead of ourselves  -  to break our own records, to  outstrip our yesterdays by our today; to do the little  parts of our work with more force than ever before - Stewart Johnson Keri S. Abed and Wade H. Abed Emmitt Smith, #22, was an All-Pro running back for the World Champion Dallas Cowboys. His impressive statistics are well known to football fans. Regularly, Emmitt leads all rushers in yardage gained, yards per carry and touchdowns scored. Little known and seldom talked about is what the football experts, like John Madden, call Emmitt's most impressive statistic.  It's his  YAC numbers. That's correct -his Yards after Contact.   You see, Emmitt is one of those "And then some" performers. He's at his best after the initial resistance.  Emmitt is a model of excellence  on this score for everyone in selling to emulate. We're convinced those three little words - And Then Som

"The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of."   C. S. Lewis Building a professional image tends to soften your market. It facilitates the process of turning prospects into clients. It keeps these clients coming back and endorsing you to others. Building a professional image brings profitable growth to your business or practice. Here are six ways in which you can build your image: 1. Project Success.   Prospects focus on you before they focus on what you are selling. Their perception of you carries considerable influence in their decision to do business with you. Study successful salespeople. Cultivate an appearance that projects an image of competence, confidence, and pride in your sales performance. 2. Project Professionalism.   When prospects and clients come into your office, they expect to see professionalism. Make certain they see and feel

"Salespeople achieve new peaks in performance when they have the know-how, the skill, the enthusiasm and the will to achieve."    - Ron Price Spectacular performances are always preceded by unspectacular preparation. Many people look at the stars in selling and say, "I wish I could perform like they do; I wish I had their knowledge -- their contacts." When salespeople say that, they don't really mean it.  They want the high achievers' skills and, of course, their incomes - but as for the years of unspectacular preparation - that is another matter. We must cultivate the will to be prepared. We must be well versed on our subject. We must know our product, backward and forward. We must know our prospects' businesses and how we can best serve them. We have to put in hours and hours of unspectacular preparation so that we can come up with a spectacular performance at the time of the sales interview. Many times,  the price of success comes in

"Never forget a customer. Never let a customer forget you." Companies rarely have a product design or price advantage for very long.  Their competitive edge, their only major advantage, lies in the professional manner in which their salespeople deliver distinctive service . Your image in business circles and your community has a direct bearing on your sales performance. After the sale has closed  is the time to remember that prospects who purchased the products and paid for them did so because they had confidence in the sales rep and the service that sales rep would provide. Whether or not that confidence will be maintained and even enhanced depends largely upon the manner in which the sale after the sale is handled.  Professionalism in selling requires prompt, personal follow-through.  As Dr. Mike Mescon says,  " Good or bad, right or wrong, clients are most likely to recall the last - not the first - experience. They remember the end of the sto