~ Gandhi
The Day I Stopped Selling I Started Making Money
By Chuck Mullaney
It was one of the scariest days of my life...
As I walked up the garden path to the front door, each step I took felt like an eternity. My mind was racing trying to think of the best way to tell my wife I no longer had a job. As I braced myself for her reaction, I noticed my palms were sweating.
As I nervously turned the key in the door, I decided to be direct and get straight to the point. That way it would be over and done with as quickly as possible.
With an anxious tone in my voice I blurted out...
"Honey I don't have a job anymore", but contrary to what I expected almost in tears Christina ran up to me and gave me a comforting hug.
Now came the hard part: admitting that the reason we no longer had the stability of my monthly pay checks anymore was because my 12 years of working so hard to make my boss a wealthy man, had kindled the flame of an entrepreneurial spirit in me, which I knew would never let me rest until the day I had a business of my own.
Having a wife and 4 children to support was no easy burden to carry.
With a back ground in sales my extreme drive and determination had led me to a level of financial success in my job that I could never have previously imagined to be possible.
My downfall was that I was sure, that this was the cast iron proof that I would succeed selling on the Internet. I was INVINCIBLE.
My wife finally recovered from the shock after 2 black coffees and a good cry.
Two months down the line I discovered the sobering truth. My direct approach and obsession with "getting straight to the sale" actually got in the way of my success in my new online business...
Being a closet nerd I mastered the strategies to getting visitors to my website very quickly. But warming people up to a sale online was something I had to learn the hard way.
Being an obsessive compulsive I read every book and bought every course I could get my hands on but nothing changed, until one day I had the realization I had been tirelessly searching for.
The Marketing Equivalent Of Asking For Marriage On The First Date Doesn't Work.
Instead of focusing on what I could sell and the fastest way to persuade people to buy my products and services immediately (which worked as well as asking your date to marry you after 3 minutes)...
I started focusing on how I could help people solve their biggest problems in the areas of life that they most value. Now that I was here to serve others, everyone immediately sensed it and trusted my advice.
With this change in focus I actually started to fully appreciate the true value of what I was selling and it made me feel the most gratifying sense of fulfillment.
Instead of going straight for the sale I now began educating my website visitors on how to make better choices. Some people call it consultative selling, because from this perspective you literally switch positions in the process from a "salesperson" to a trusted friend or advisor and that's when the magic truly started to happen.
Business was going really well for me and what brought me the most happiness was seeing the joy on my wife's face when she no longer had to work, finally being able to spend quality time with our children.
I finally understood what a wise old man once taught me "happy wife, happy life".
By this point in my life I had started a thriving Joint Venture Social Network and as a result Robert Grant a world famous Facebook marketing consultant contacted me.
Based on my new philosophy of paying it forward and adding value I intuitively knew that facilitating joint ventures for Internet business owners so they could partner and profit together would pay me back 10 fold in the end.
Paying It Forward Really Works
I never charged people for this service, but the opportunities that landed in my lap as a consequence changed my business forever and unknown to me at the time this meeting with Robert was going to be one of them.
Before speaking to Robert I looked him up on Facebook and nearly collapsed when I saw his following was a staggering 297,000 fans and group members.
It wasn't unusual for Product owners, who were about to go into a launch to contact me all the time, but what struck me about Robert was his primary questions were focused on how he could help me and this built immediate rapport.
What Do Facebook, Making Sales And ADD Have In Common?
Cutting a long story short we had a fascinating conversation identifying the most important keys to our success. I discovered the same strategies that had enabled me to build a 7-figure business mostly focused on email and video marketing had worked in exactly the same way on Facebook.
Apart from sharing the same philosophies about marketing, Robert and I immediately found a common ground.
We both had chronic ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) also known as the attention span of a fish and the patience of small children....
We had both become very successful by focusing on adding value to our customer's BEFORE offering anything for sale.
Now as strange as it may sound mostly due to the ADD we mostly communicated with our prospects and customers through short bite sized chunks of information short emails, short blog posts and short Facebook notes etc...
In this Web 2.0 world where people are getting endlessly distracted constantly by Skype, email, Facebook, mobile phones ringing, text messages and every other form of uninvited interruption these short, informative communications fitted perfectly.
A Requirement In Today's Web 2.0 World
In fact, Consultative Selling has now become a basic requirement for making big money online.
Of course you can make "some" sales even if you viciously attack every new subscriber with products and services for them to buy. But, the percentage of prospects that purchase from you when you are a "trusted advisor" is huge in comparison.
That first conversation between Robert and I resulted in immense value for our customers. We ended up mentoring and teaching webinars and seminars to thousands of people from every walk of life, worldwide...
Teaching people how to profit from the synergy between Facebook, now the most powerful viral list building tool ever and a solid proven plan to create a true Consultative Sales relationship with your email list.
Final Thoughts.
Taking the time to build trust with your Facebook following and your email list quickly creates a relationship that lasts and that is the secret to building a real business that results in big sales even if you only have a small list.
As I walked up the garden path to the front door, each step I took felt like an eternity. My mind was racing trying to think of the best way to tell my wife I no longer had a job. As I braced myself for her reaction, I noticed my palms were sweating.
As I nervously turned the key in the door, I decided to be direct and get straight to the point. That way it would be over and done with as quickly as possible.
With an anxious tone in my voice I blurted out...
"Honey I don't have a job anymore", but contrary to what I expected almost in tears Christina ran up to me and gave me a comforting hug.
Now came the hard part: admitting that the reason we no longer had the stability of my monthly pay checks anymore was because my 12 years of working so hard to make my boss a wealthy man, had kindled the flame of an entrepreneurial spirit in me, which I knew would never let me rest until the day I had a business of my own.
Having a wife and 4 children to support was no easy burden to carry.
Your Drive To Make Money Is Killing Your Sales?
With a back ground in sales my extreme drive and determination had led me to a level of financial success in my job that I could never have previously imagined to be possible.
My downfall was that I was sure, that this was the cast iron proof that I would succeed selling on the Internet. I was INVINCIBLE.
My wife finally recovered from the shock after 2 black coffees and a good cry.
Two months down the line I discovered the sobering truth. My direct approach and obsession with "getting straight to the sale" actually got in the way of my success in my new online business...
Being a closet nerd I mastered the strategies to getting visitors to my website very quickly. But warming people up to a sale online was something I had to learn the hard way.
Being an obsessive compulsive I read every book and bought every course I could get my hands on but nothing changed, until one day I had the realization I had been tirelessly searching for.
The Marketing Equivalent Of Asking For Marriage On The First Date Doesn't Work.
Instead of focusing on what I could sell and the fastest way to persuade people to buy my products and services immediately (which worked as well as asking your date to marry you after 3 minutes)...
I started focusing on how I could help people solve their biggest problems in the areas of life that they most value. Now that I was here to serve others, everyone immediately sensed it and trusted my advice.
With this change in focus I actually started to fully appreciate the true value of what I was selling and it made me feel the most gratifying sense of fulfillment.
Building Trust With Your Prospects and Customers
Instead of going straight for the sale I now began educating my website visitors on how to make better choices. Some people call it consultative selling, because from this perspective you literally switch positions in the process from a "salesperson" to a trusted friend or advisor and that's when the magic truly started to happen.
Business was going really well for me and what brought me the most happiness was seeing the joy on my wife's face when she no longer had to work, finally being able to spend quality time with our children.
I finally understood what a wise old man once taught me "happy wife, happy life".
By this point in my life I had started a thriving Joint Venture Social Network and as a result Robert Grant a world famous Facebook marketing consultant contacted me.
Based on my new philosophy of paying it forward and adding value I intuitively knew that facilitating joint ventures for Internet business owners so they could partner and profit together would pay me back 10 fold in the end.
Paying It Forward Really Works
I never charged people for this service, but the opportunities that landed in my lap as a consequence changed my business forever and unknown to me at the time this meeting with Robert was going to be one of them.
Before speaking to Robert I looked him up on Facebook and nearly collapsed when I saw his following was a staggering 297,000 fans and group members.
It wasn't unusual for Product owners, who were about to go into a launch to contact me all the time, but what struck me about Robert was his primary questions were focused on how he could help me and this built immediate rapport.
What Do Facebook, Making Sales And ADD Have In Common?
Cutting a long story short we had a fascinating conversation identifying the most important keys to our success. I discovered the same strategies that had enabled me to build a 7-figure business mostly focused on email and video marketing had worked in exactly the same way on Facebook.
Apart from sharing the same philosophies about marketing, Robert and I immediately found a common ground.
We both had chronic ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) also known as the attention span of a fish and the patience of small children....
We had both become very successful by focusing on adding value to our customer's BEFORE offering anything for sale.
Now as strange as it may sound mostly due to the ADD we mostly communicated with our prospects and customers through short bite sized chunks of information short emails, short blog posts and short Facebook notes etc...
In this Web 2.0 world where people are getting endlessly distracted constantly by Skype, email, Facebook, mobile phones ringing, text messages and every other form of uninvited interruption these short, informative communications fitted perfectly.
A Requirement In Today's Web 2.0 World
In fact, Consultative Selling has now become a basic requirement for making big money online.
Of course you can make "some" sales even if you viciously attack every new subscriber with products and services for them to buy. But, the percentage of prospects that purchase from you when you are a "trusted advisor" is huge in comparison.
That first conversation between Robert and I resulted in immense value for our customers. We ended up mentoring and teaching webinars and seminars to thousands of people from every walk of life, worldwide...
Teaching people how to profit from the synergy between Facebook, now the most powerful viral list building tool ever and a solid proven plan to create a true Consultative Sales relationship with your email list.
Final Thoughts.
Taking the time to build trust with your Facebook following and your email list quickly creates a relationship that lasts and that is the secret to building a real business that results in big sales even if you only have a small list.
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