I am my Brand.

Everything that we do and everything that we don't do is going to affect our personal brand. In today's world if you want to have extraordinary results, especially as a salesperson in the car business you MUST establish a brand. That brand must fill a need, offer a service, and consistently deliver on an experience time and time again so people give you their trust and business, and best of all send you referrals.

We must take extreme ownership and do what it takes to get above the noise in our communities and become THE go-to guy or gal for the product we sell. If you sell New GM vehicles then ask yourself, what makes you the best option for your customers and what are you doing ahead of time to make sure they already know that or someone is telling them that by the time they realize they have the need?

We all need to take extreme ownership of our career, and our personal brand. So here are a few tips to make sure from the initial contact online to the meeting in the dealership that you are the ONLY option your customers consider.

1- Be Genuine

We must make sure whatever claims we make on social media or in person, whatever you say you will do, make sure it's genuine so you are able to deliver on it each and every time. Don't say you're available 24/7 if you don't answer your phone on Sunday's. Make sure you set the right expectations, become known for honesty, integrity, and reliability, they're HUGE! 

2- Be Informative

I know you want to have extraordinary results and become successful as a car salesman or woman, and nowadays you need to stay aware of the market, know the industry, and be engaged with your network and community. We need to show that our brand has real value, and part of the value we can bring is INFORMATION! We can be informative and truly be a resource people refer to when our services are needed.

3- Be Open to Change

It's no secret that things are much different in the car business now than they were 20 years ago, even 5 years ago in some parts of the country and world. If your brand is going to be successful, if we are going to be successful in the car business, we must be open to change. Changes in technology, processes, mindsets, practices, whatever it is we must be open to change when change is good. So if you never used Facebook or LinkedIn before to sell cars and you have enough word of mouth to sell your 20-30 cars a month great. But 99% of salespeople are not you. So be open to change and never think you've have seen, heard or learned it all (Or at least share this blog with them. :) ).

Take extreme ownership of your brand and you will begin to see greater results, I promise!

Car shoppers want information and they want to be able to find it easily. They also want to be able to compare products easily to make a determination of which will best suit their families needs in many different ways. This is why the king of online shopping Amazon is so popular, you select a product of interest and they supply you with other "comparables" and reviews right away making it easy to research and make an informed decision. 

When I started selling years ago a sales mentor of mine in those early days defined selling to me as supplying the customer with enough information to make an educated buying decision. What he was really telling me was help your customers solve their particular problem by being a resource of information to help them do just that.

I knew my product inside and out and how it could help, I could compare products with the other products I offered to give my customers different choices, value, options, and compare to my competition so my customer didn't have to or if they did confirm what they already knew. I was able to help my customers and built a reputation for being a true resource.

However, today we can be a resource as salespeople in such a bigger way than when I first started selling by leveraging the power of social media, online blogging, websites like DrivingSales.com, video platforms like YouTube, or anything else that allows us to build our brand by offering great content that our customers can engage with. We need to be the resource our customers turn to when they are in the market for a vehicle. We need to be the authority on what's happening in our industry.

Salespeople have a tremendous opportunity in today's world, 2018 should be your best year. If you're New to Sales and just getting going you have taken a step into a changing world and a fun world of sales, especially in the car business. Yes, things are changing all the time, but the reality is they have already changed big time in the car business and the salespeople who dominate the future are different than those who dominated the past!   

Some of the most successful people in this world and to ever live would tell you that hard work is required to become very successful. To think that hard work isn't necessary to become a success is arrogant and naive. However, is just working hard really the answer?

You can work really hard every night after work on your golf swing, you can spend hours each evening in your backyard honing in your swing. But if you are working hard practicing the wrong mechanics, you won't become successful on the golf course and shoot a low score. No, you have to focus your efforts on practicing correct mechanics so you can accomplish your goal of playing good golf.

I think we tend to give the advice to other people who want to succeed that they need to work hard, which they do, but we need to be careful not to lead them to think that just working bell to bell is going to make success happen. In sales, especially car sales, if you're not working hard on the right things you will end up becoming very unhappy and miserable working many hours for little reward.

So if you want to get better at anything, be successful in the car business or any business, lose weight, find a great partner, make new friends, or anything else you need to work hard on the things that will allow you to have success in that area of your life... but work hard on the right things, don't just put in a lot of time and effort being busy.

You can learn a lot about selling, customer service, marketing, negotiating, cold calling, the sales process, the car business, people, the human mind, and anything else you want to know about from ready books, watching videos on YouTube, or following thought leaders and successful people all over the internet and social media. You will find that anything you want to do well at comes down to working really hard on just a few things, maybe even just one.

So in 2018 be sure to focus your efforts on the right things, the few things, maybe even that one thing that you can work really hard at and achieve extraordinary results! 

What does it mean to grind it out? The “Grind” is a very popular mantra with many modern motivational leaders and entrepreneurs. Hustle and Grind. You hear these terms all the time, regardless if you’re listening to a fitness expert or a sales trainer. But what does it mean to truly grind it out? Learn how grinding it out can change your life and your career.

You Must Be All In, 100% Committed

First of all being able to grind it out requires that you’re all in. You must be completely committed. If you’re not, it will be nearly impossible for you to stick with whatever you’re doing amidst major challenge or set back. You may be able to handle one or two challenges. But if you’re not truly all in and committed, eventually you will give up on your pursuit. You’ll allow excuses to ruin your chances. Don’t do this. Part of grinding it out is digging in deep and staying with something even when times get tough and you want to quit.

If you decide to do something, if you truly want something in your life, go for it and be all in. When a failure or a major challenge show up along the way, being all in will force you to find a way to keep grinding. Make no other option available for yourself. Burn the ships as they say. Go All In, and regardless of what you are faced with for hurdles, remember to keep grinding.

You Either Win Or Die Trying

Being all in also requires you be true to yourself and who you really are. You have to understand that the only thing you can control is yourself. You have to take full responsibility for everything you do, every choice that you make. Don’t be a victim of life, playing a victim harms your ability to reach your true potential. It stunts your growth. The victim is always a victim, and never a victor.

You have to be your own biggest fan, and be true to who you are. Throughout life, you will have mentors. If you don’t have any now, you should find some. Find someone or a few people that are successful in life and that you admire. Pick mentors that are much more successful than you are. Choose mentors that you will likely not outgrow anytime soon. You may find yourself imitating these mentors in certain ways. But, remember to always make everything your own. Be genuine.

Trust Your Instincts, Especially About Other People

Be mindful of your sales career, know who you should and shouldn’t be spending your time with. I try to remember something a friend told me years ago. He said, “Only a Fool Doesn’t Listen.” It’s true, you would be a fool to not listen to opportunity when it’s presented to you in your career. Just remember the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. There is no substitution for hard work. Watch out for scams and big promises! In your sales career, you will need other people if you are to be successful at the highest levels. Even for the most independent sales professional, there is support staff that keep the sales machine moving forward. If you can get everyone in your life on the same page with you, it makes achieving your goals that much faster. When the people who are closest to you understand your commitment level, and compliment that with their attitudes and actions, it makes it easier for you to reach your potential. Regardless, you need to take full responsibility for the people in your life, make sure they understand where you’re coming from. You cannot be all in on something and have someone in your immediate circle like a husband or wife for instance that is not. It won’t work.

Don’t Try To Figure Everything Out All At Once

Maybe you just want to reach a certain income level right now. Or, you may want to one day be known as one of greatest in your industry. Maybe you just want to be successful financially so you have more time to spend doing the things you love to do, with the people you love the most. Whatever your goals are, don’t spend all your time trying to figure everything out. TAKE ACTION! It’s no secret, all the successful people we admire say you have to take massive action if you want to be massively successful in life. Taking normal levels of activity will not create amazing results. So many times we want to figure it out first and perfect our plan before we act. We fear we will fail if we don’t have it all figured out first. What you need to do is just take action. Just get started on whatever it is you want to accomplish in your career and life.

Grinding It Out Means You’re Relentless, You Never Quit

You don’t even consider the idea of quitting. When you make a mistake, when you get set back by something or someone, you just find a way to keep moving forward. You regroup and find a better way, and you learn from your mistakes. However, what is better than learning from making mistakes, is learning from the mistakes of others. Part of grinding it out is studying others and always being a student. If you want to make more sales, you need to study how to sell. If you want more money, you need to understand money so it doesn’t avoid you and leave you easily. If you want better relationships with people, studying human behavior and relationships would be beneficial. The greatest in any field are constant students, never too proud to learn something new, or learn a better or more efficient way to do something.

Don’t be afraid to put in the time, and do the hard work. Anything worth doing, anything that will bring great reward to you, will require hard work and probably some patience on your part. Often times we look at successful people and assume they were lucky, that their success was easy. We don’t know about all the hard work, the failures, the times they were told no or doubted themselves before they finally became successful. Often the super successful are regular people like you and me that just simply believed in what they were doing, they refused to quit,  and then they had their breakthrough.

Many Times People Miss Their Breakthrough By Quitting Just Before Their Big Break Comes

Please, don’t let this happen to you. Don’t sell yourself short by giving up on yourself. Always look for one more way to give it another try. The only way you can fail in life is if you quit. Don’t quit, persist relentlessly. Grind it out! This is especially important to remember in sales. If you are new to sales, you will want to remember that rejection is part of the game, and it’s not personal. Keep moving forward. Every no you hear brings you closer to hearing a yes. If you are doing your best, and you have the proper training, then it’s just a matter of persistence. The more stick-with-it-ness you have in sales, the more successful you will be. I have seen new salespeople come in and have a very hard time with this. Rejection can be hard for certain people. They take it personally. When someone says no to you in sales, you have to remember they are saying no to your offer, not to you. Many times all this no requires in order to make it a yes, is the willingness to stay in there and keep working hard to get a yes.

Nothing Great Can Be Achieved Without The Ability To Grind It Out

Grinding it out doesn’t have to be seen as something that is bad, or dreadful. Grinding it out means you have found a passion within yourself to put your best effort into everything you do. You have come to a place where you refuse to settle for less than you deserve. You can decide right now that you refuse to be one of those people that just dream about what they want but never gets to experience it. Be determined, commit, go all in and decide to get everything life has to offer you. Use your unique abilities and talents that God gave you to go out into the marketplace and get your piece of the pie. Bring value to everything you do. The ultimate goal is to get yourself to a point in life where you can have true freedom,  where you can choose how you spend your time.

Wrapping it all up!

So the goal is to get yourself to a point where you do everything on your terms, and you do it with intent. Even if you’re not doing exactly what you want to be doing right now, you can choose to take responsibility for that, be awesome at what you are doing, and take steps towards what you truly want. You can choose. You have free will. You have one life to live so you have to take action on this now! Grind it out every day. Each day gets the most out of life that you can. Be willing to grind and do whatever it takes to reach your goals, to be yourself and stay true to you. The people you are around will respect you because you are genuine, you are real. Your choices won’t always be right, and you’ll never be perfect. However, refuse to quit. Take that option off the table. Commit to making it work, and grinding it out no matter what. You will find the freedom, and the success you are looking for in life if you do.

Do you want to be successful and accomplish great things with your God-given potential? I know I do, but it can be overwhelming trying to figure out what you need to do each and every day to move in the direction of success and get the results you expect from yourself. Are you making the same mistake that myself and so many people make every day of trying to do everything instead of narrowing your focus to the few things that will lead to the greatest results by following a proven principal for success?

Many people determined to be successful mistake being busy and taking lots of action for succeeding, or think that's what it takes to be successful. While I agree 100% with people like Tony Robbins and Grant Cardone who say to take massive action, I also believe that management consultant Joseph M. Juran gave us a simple formula for success and focusing our actions most effectively when he suggested the Pareto Principal named after economist Vilfredo Pareto, otherwise known as the 80/20 Rule.

In sales, as it is with anything in life that you want to have extraordinary results, your success is not determined by how many things you do, but by how narrow you can make your focus and take massive action on the few small things that make all the results you want actually happen. Your goal should be to do a few things really well, not to do everything. It's critical that you determine what matters most to your success and then do those things!

The 80/20 Rule suggests that a small amount, 20% of what you do and actions you take will create most of your success or 80%. Basically, the majority of what you want in anything in life including your sales career will come from the minority of what you do. The problem is that we get caught in a trap of thinking everything matters equally, but that's not the case, some things really do matter more and some things just need to be removed from our routines until those important actions have been taken and completed.

I know I have found myself in the mindset of thinking because I am busy I am being productive, have you done this before? You're checking email instead of making more calls, or organizing your files instead of following up customers from the previous day. Yes, you are busy when you're doing those things and they have their place and time but are you being the most productive you can be is what you need to ask yourself.

"Don't focus on being busy, focus on being productive, what matters most should fuel your day!" - Gary Keller

It's your responsibility to drill down to the few actions that are going to produce the most results. You need to give this some thought and consideration, maybe speak with your mentor or if you don't have one look to connect with someone in your space who is successful doing what you are doing and find out what things they do to produce all that success. I promise you the most successful people follow the 80/20 Rule whether they realize it or not.

Once you have figured out those key actions or maybe it's simply ONE thing that will make all the difference you have to be disciplined and say no to distractions. This might mean you don't check your email every hour, or you don't organize your files right away. Say no to whatever is NOT the most important work of the day until the most important work has been done.

Remember the point of this principle for success and what I am trying to drive home to you here, is that not all actions matter equally, and success will come from doing the thing/s that matter the most, I promise. When you develop this mindset you will see your results start to increase, and then you can take it even further by drilling down to what is the 20% of the 20% of actions and so on until you find the single most important thing you need to be doing each and every day to fuel your results.

You may not like to hear this but some customers are going to be much more valuable than others, some people in your life will create most your business success, and just a few financial decisions will result in most your financial success in life. It is just how it works, whether we like it or not! But if you don't figure out who and what these things are that are most important, you will be left with average results far less than your potential.

I challenge you to begin to apply the 80/20 Rule to your life and see what happens, give thought to the actions you take and drill down to the single most important, the 20% of what you do that produces 80% or more of your results and then take massive action on those few things. Continue to drill down until you know exactly what it is that will produce success, and then repeat.

Remember that doing the most important thing each day is always the most important thing, and by following this principle for success you will increase your chances of reaching your potential and enjoying the successes meant for you in life.

Also, remember to Subscribe below and get the New to Sales Success Tips delivered to your inbox every Monday morning. Tips to help you succeed in your sales career, and life! Click subscribe today!

Change is inevitable, and if you avoid it you will feel pain in your sales career.

One thing is for certain is that the way salespeople sell today is different with the advances in technology and being able to connect with so many people so quickly and easily and in some cases even for free! Some salespeople refuse to change once they get used to something, while others with methods more modern refuse to see any use in "older" techniques that still have value.

Willingness to accept and adapt to change is how you will realize your potential.

If you stay in the same place all the time you see the same things all the time. If you want to see something new you need to go new places, meet new people, and look for opportunity beyond your comfort zone. Like Zig Ziglar used to say, "You go as far as you can see and when you get there you'll always be able to see further!" This is very true, but we tend to get stuck in our comfort zones and refuse to accept change when something new comes along and when you do this you always lose because you never get the chance to see the next horizon and go for it. Be ready for a change by continually growing into a better version of yourself every single day.  

Right now you could be a successful young salesperson reading this using modern day techniques and marketing practices second to none to reach your customer base and generate leads, etc. But I promise you at some point there will be new technology, new ideas, and new ways of doing what you're doing that someone else just like you someday will think is THE BEST way to do it. That doesn't mean what you're doing right now won't have some value in the future, and maybe it will still work best for some people, but being open to trying new things and technologies is a crucial mindset to have especially learning it early on when you're New to Sales!

There is a lot of debate between MANY high profile, high performing, Type A personalities out there in the sales world about whether or not cold calling is dead for instance. Yes, cold calling is one of those highly debated topics in sales and if you're new to selling I am sure you have heard about cold calling and the varying opinions salespeople have. Of course, it's important that you decide what you think and feel to find a way to be successful selling yourself, your product or service, and your company. If you know of a way to accomplish your goals without cold calling, good for you then go for it!

But does cold calling still play an important role in the success of many salespeople? Grant Cardone who has built 4 companies on cold calling that produce a $100 million a year or more in sales believes it's one of if not THE most important things you need to be doing. When someone like that still advocates for it then I listen and take note. Cold Calling my friends has its place in the sales process for almost all salespeople and companies. That's why big companies spend big money on cold calling. People hate cold calls yes, the stats stink and if you go by the stats then you wouldn't do it, but there's something more to it than the crummy stats and that's what made Cardone a sales and business superstar!

One tip on Cold Calling that Cardone gives is to "blanket" a market with cold calling for a few days. Make calls and focus on getting appointments for later in the week when you spend two days than calling on those leads in person. He says to even be sure to visit the prospects that hung up on you when you called! That's right because most people forget 75% or more of what they talked about the previous day and 94% of people don't remember a single cold call they received in the last 24 months! So CALL and CALL again he says, and be sure to even follow up with a visit!

Now others like the "Hardcore Closer" Ryan Stewman have figured out how to generate leads and make a ton of sales from them in the process. His way works, it's modern, and it's a change from what would be considered an "old school way" in what I described Cardone advocating. Both of these men are successful, I mean c'mon GC owns a jet! So who is right and who is wrong? I say neither is right and neither is wrong, they both just found what works for them and that's what we all need to do to be successful.

So the best advice I can give you is to be open to change when you're New to Sales and willing to learn new things every day you can. But ultimately you have to find the things which work best for you and how you are most likely to succeed consistently long term. We are all different and selling is very personal and unique, the salespeople who find a genuine sales persona and process do the best and have the most success.

Wrapping it all UP!

Remember, it is very hard to act like someone and something you're not for too long before you have a hard time keeping up with the unhappiness. You have to be yourself in sales and that will lead to you finding success on your terms. Cold Calling works, Funnels work, social media works, etc. etc. so use them all, get good at them all and maximize your efforts by doing what works for you with an attitude of acceptance towards change so that you're always in a position to grow and get better, to reach your potential.

This is a very powerful mindset to establish when you're New to Sales, but you can do it I'm rooting for you and I'm always here to help!

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I started setting goals years ago when I first began listening to Zig Ziglar. I believe you will win by setting goals because I have, so in my latest video blog for New to Sales, I give some advice how!

Happy Selling!

Establishing your personal brand when you're New to Sales is critical if you want to have extraordinary results. Here are a few tips on how to get started! 

Building your personal brand around values focused on delivering a great customer experience is smart. Here are a few ways to establish your brand and deliver a customer experience that creates raving fans when you're

New to Sales.

Do you think about self-driving, fully autonomous vehicles (AVs) often? I'm in the car business so of course, I talk about them way more than the average American does, but who really thinks about that stuff outside of the movie theatre other than people like Professor Iyad Rahwan? After listening to his TedTalks speech on YouTube I can see that the future of Autonomous Vehicles is dependent on figuring out some ethical issues more than anything else.

It's a very interesting dilemma. 

Did you know that 40,200 people died in 2016 (first time more than 40k people have died in a single year in 10 years) due to traffic accidents, and 1.2 million people died worldwide? Neither did I until I listened to Professor Rahwan's speech. The majority of these accidents were due to human error, so let me ask you this, what if there were a way to eliminate the majority of the accidents by removing the human error with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and self-driving fully autonomous vehicles?

This is the question Professor Rahwan asks, but it's not a simple solution even though eliminating accidents caused by human error would be for the "greater good" in reality. When people were surveyed in his research he found that the people who thought a self-driving car should make choices to protect the greater good also said they would never buy a car like that. What they really wanted, he found, was a car that always kept them the passenger safe but everyone else's car should make choices for the greater good. Yeah, OK.

So what is this greater good I keep mentioning anyway?

Well think of it this way, your self-driving car malfunctions, and it happens in a populated area. Remember that you're just a passenger and the car is in control. The car's artificial intelligence (AI) is going make a decision due to the malfunction to either continue on its current path and run right into a group of people crossing the road and kill them all, or it can swerve to the left hitting one pedestrian killing him/her but coming to a stop and saving the group and you. Making a decision for the greater good would mean the one person dies in order for the car to stop and not kill many.

Make sense?

Well here's where the major dilemma is, you're in the car too and your life matters for something right? So when you're faced with your own life being in jeopardy what do you think the right choice is? Hit the group, the single pedestrian, or how about a third option. Let's say the car could swerve to the right and run smack into a building stopping the car from hitting anyone except in the crash you're guaranteed not to survive?

Different scenario now huh?

Some people as Professor Rahwan points out choose to take their own life and save all the others for the greater good. Others save themselves and take out the one pedestrian, and of course, some choose to allow the car to run its natural course and possibly kill many in the group crossing the road. Who is right and who is wrong? No one really, everyone is right in this case and there are points to be made for any of the points of view.

So what do we do? Regulators will figure out regulations and debates will take place by debaters, but ultimately I agree with those that believe the manufacturers of the vehicle technology, the artificial intelligence inside the vehicles will play a key role in all of this. Imagine an algorithm that decides how your car chooses to act in the scenarios we talked about based on how you program your vehicle's settings?

Crazy right?

Maybe someday I will be delivering a fully autonomous self-driving Nissan X038 and instead of showing my customer how to operate their navigation system or program their Homelink I will be walking them through what is mostly a personality/psychology test to help the car understand how the passenger/owner would want it to respond and react to different traffic scenarios.

My Mind is blown!

How far away are we from this being a reality? Would you want to drive a self-driving vehicle? More importantly, would you be comfortable programming a vehicle's computer to think for you in life and death scenarios inside that vehicle? I mean we have idiots all the time doing stupid things in vehicles that cost innocent lives. Think about the lunatic that "heard voices in his head" telling him to swerve his car onto the sidewalk in New York City and wipe out tens of pedestrians not long ago. 

There is definitely a lot to think about in the coming days for the future of self-driving autonomous vehicles, and that future may be closer than we think! 

If you want to have some fun with this, check out the Moral Machine and run through the scenarios and see what the data says about you, plus watch Professor Rahwan's TedTalk here!

Oh, and Please leave a comment below and Share on LinkedIn, Facebook, Google + or any of your other favorite social sites, thanks!