Sell With Certainty

Success Magazine Online

Master Motivator Tony Robbins Shows You How

Anthony Robbins preaches constant and never-ending improvement. This 36- year-old top speaker and author has coached everyone from world leaders to professional athletes. Here, he shares his formula for peak performance.

What are the attributes of successful salespeople?

Before you ever get in front of an individual, you've got to have certainty within yourself. Sometimes people start selling a product or a service, and they flourish because they believe in it. But then, they've talked about it so often, they lose their emotional edge. They have intellectual certainty, but they lose the emotional intensity that makes the customer want to follow through.

The solution is to develop a habit — I do this every day — of waking up and thinking about why you do what you do. Think of someone who didn't want to buy but did. And the decision made him phenomenally happy. How did you feel? This exercise will give you emotional juice that you have a great product.

How can you make a positive impression on your customers before you even meet them?

You want to develop an identity that makes people seek you out. That is my primary focus on teaching salespeople. The old techniques involving manipulation don't produce results.

To have a quality relationship, you need to create something called BENWIMP. B is what customers believe about you, your product, or your company. E is how they evaluate. Find out what questions you will have to answer for them to say yes. N is what they really need. Know their needs before you walk in. W is discovering their wounds — physical or psychological. People will do more to get rid of pain than to get pleasure. I is their interests. If you can relate what you're selling to something that they're interested in — whether it's golf or children — you'll have more of their attention. M is their mentors or role models. Find out whether there is somebody they respect who also uses your product. P is what they are proud of. Could you show them how to enhance that?

Most salespeople walk in and recite a memorized text. A professional creates long-term relationships that will lead to multiple sales.

You always seem to be in a peak state. How can anyone put himself in a peak state before a big meeting?

What people do moment to moment is not shaped by their ability as much as their state. Repeating a bunch of affirmations — ''I'm happy, I'm happy'' — won't put you in a positive state. The fastest way to change your state is to make a radical change in your physiology, which is the way you breathe, your gestures, and your expressions.

If I asked you to put yourself in a peak place, what would you do? Sit or stand up straight, throw your shoulders back, lift your head. The reason you have certainty when you stand up and raise your shoulders is that you have more oxygen. With more oxygen, every cell in your body is singing with intensity.

We've all experienced a time when we felt unstoppable. Put yourself back there. Identify the gestures you were using. Create a trigger or an anchor. For some people, it's the snap of a finger. I take a deep breath in, an explosive breath out, and make a certain movement and gesture. I do this every time I get up to speak. Even if I believe in what I'm talking about, if I don't turn myself on, I'm not going to radiate that same level of energy.

How can an entrepreneur motivate his salespeople to sell with the same passion and certainty he possesses?

You have to give people an emotional reason for selling besides making a buck. There are three ways to motivate people: Fear, which never lasts. Incentives, which never last, either. You can get to the point where people will do something only if you give them a big enough incentive.

The third is personal development. No matter how much money or acknowledgment you give someone, he will never be happy unless he's growing and contributing to something beyond himself. Sit down with each individual on your staff and find out what motivates him.

Everyone wants his individual needs to be met. Salespeople have to find the real needs of the customer. As an entrepreneur, you must do the same thing for your internal customers — your employees. a

''Before a sales call, you've got to put yourself in your best state, so the best comes out of you,'' advises Anthony Robbins.