Studies have shown that superstar salespeople spend 60% of their time focused on building rapport with a prospect, way more than the average sales person. What better way to gain their trust than to release a natural “feel-good” chemical and make them laugh! I happened to be searching LinkedIn last week and I came across a fantastic LinkedIn group called “Brilliant Ads.” I took the most hilarious ones just for you because…

1. Seeing these massively successful campaigns will give you some good creative muse for your next marketing campaign.
2. I’ve been using these pictures as a sales tool to send to my potential clients to break the ice, crack a good joke, and win some rapport through text message, facebook chat, and email. (I even put #8 in a proposal right before the pricing to soften them before the close).
3. Because I find these hilarious and I want you to enjoy them as well

How can you do something like these ads in your next campaign…

The Funniest Insurance Ad Ever. Can you create a picture and caption like this for your company?

A picture is worth a thousand words. Can you capture the perfect picture that puts your buyer in urgency, pain, or laughter? This Diamond company did all three.

Can you use the holidays to post something seasonally funny? Welcome to the scariest day of the year…

Educate your buyer about why you’re better than your competition! Even something as simple as this, highly effective! (Notice how many likes this got on LinkedIn, almost double what all the other posts received).

Can you create something that’s innovative and grabs attention? How many employees do you have in the field? Did you ever consider using their cars as billboards? #guerillamarketing

Can you come up with a creative place to put your ads where people haven’t seen them before and find it clever?

McDonalds took thinking out of the box to a new level. What out of the box thinking can you create in your marketing mediums?

HILARIOUS. This is the one I’ve been using in my emails and proposals to potential clients… “P.S. I saw this ad a couple days ago on LinkedIn and found it amusing. I think it’s a great analogy of what our work will do together… All you need is [insert what you will give them] and it changes everything. ;)”

What clever merch can you place your company information on? I’ve been keeping this stick of chapstick for years because it tastes amazing and the provider that put their information on it has been on the top of my mind years later because of it. Where can you place your information where people will continue to see it for years to come?

Who is your target market? Can you speak in their language? Jacoby&Meyer knew millennials liked emoji’s and this campaign has been a huge hit for them.

Hah. Too funny. Be clever and remember laughter is a great way to gain rapport with clients. The difference between superstar salespeople and mediocre is their ability to build a lasting relationship.

If you’re looking to spice up your marketing material, or find more compelling ways to close more sales download our chapter that changes lives from our New York Times Best Seller The Ultimate Sales Machine. Or if you’d like to speak to someone about growing your company faster, better, smarter, sign up for a 22 minute strategy call with one of our growth specialists.

Love and light,

Amanda Holmes
CEO -Chet Holmes International

P.S. Have YOU ever put together a clever campaign? Tell me about it below in the comments box!

In anticipation of our upcoming webinar 4 Step-By-Step Strategies To Win 42% More Business, we thought we’d share a sneak peek at one of the strategies we’ll be covering—HOW TO CREATE A GREAT SALES SCRIPT.

This concept will be addressed in greater detail in the webinar (you really want to hear this sales script delivered LIVE by an expert in order to grasp how ridiculously effective it is, but we’ll do our best here just in writing). That said, any enterprising CEO should be able to implement the concepts contained solely within this post to huge benefit in their company. In fact, for greater ease of implementation we’ve included a download at the end of this post containing a blank template for creating this kind of killer sales script in your business today.

But enough preamble, in the words of music producer Berry Gordy, “Don’t bore us, get to the chorus!”

What follows is the sales script used by the salespeople of a 1.5 Billion Dollar home-building company in Mexico—BEFORE CHI got involved.

THE PRE-CHI SCRIPT:

SALESPERSON – Hi, this is Pedro Gomez from X Company. I would love to come talk to your employees about buying a home.

PROSPECT – Homes? No thank you. We’re not interested.

END SALES SCRIPT.

That’s basically what they were saying.

Train wreck…

Their solution to the resulting low rate of appointment setting was to pound away at the phones with the hope that maybe ONE business owner SOMEWHERE would be mildly interested.

At CHI we’re all in favor of pounding away at a sales effort, but we also live by the maxim: work SMARTER not HARDER—and this was not an example of working SMARTER.

BUT THEN AGAIN, MOST SALES SCRIPTS ARE NOT.

Our experience is that most sales scripts look like the one above. Such a script accomplishes three things—none of them particularly useful.

1. It lets the prospect know who you are. OKAY.
2. It tells them what YOU want. BAD. Hint: they don’t care what YOU want. What’s in it for THEM?
3. And it opens the door for the prospect to say NO immediately. VERY BAD.
4. If a sales rep does manage the sale from here, he/she deserves a medal—it’s going to be an uphill battle against a foe that is in control and LEADING the whole time.

Oftentimes this limp script is all the sales rep is provided. After that they’re left to their own devices while in poor strategic position and with poor tools. Good luck, buddy.

ENTER the strategic, SMARTER approach…

THE CHI SCRIPT:

By contrast to the three weak accomplishments of the previous script, this new script accomplishes 11 carefully thought out, strategic objectives:

1. It lets the prospect know who you are. OKAY.
2. It positions your company as well respected in its field. GOOD.
3. It only opens the door for the prospect to say, “Yes.” And does so REPEATEDLY. GREAT.
4. It focuses on THEIR needs. Not yours. GOOD.
5. It positions your company as altruistic and outwardly focused—trustworthy. GREAT.
6. It educates the prospect (allowing for objectives 7, 8, 9, and 10). EXCELLENT
7. It builds rapport (educating builds rapport while selling breaks it). GREAT.
8. It allows you to reset the prospect’s buying criteria in your favor. GREAT.
9. It keeps the prospect INTERESTED. GREAT.
10. 10.  It positions the salesperson as a knowledgeable expert. GREAT.
11. 11.  And finally, it makes the Call To Action a breeze. RESULTS!

Here’s how it’s done…

FIRST, A WORD OF CAUTION

Don’t use this script on the WRONG PERSON! Every word of this sales script has been painstakingly chosen, and pitching it to the wrong audience will absolutely ruin its effectiveness. Who is the RIGHT AUDIENCE you ask? ALWAYS PITCH THE PERSON WHO HAS THE AUTHORITY TO SAY, “YES” WITHOUT ASKING SOMEBODY ELSE’S PERMISSION! If you pitch what we call a “gatekeeper,” chances are they have the power to say, “No, we’re not interested,” but not the power to say, “Yes, we’re buying!” The best you can hope for is that the gatekeeper will try to get you in front of his/her boss. Then you end up with the gatekeeper pitching YOUR script.

WITH NO PRACTICE.

WITH NOTHING INVESTED IN THE OUTCOME.

AND PROBABLY IN LESS THAN THIRTY SECONDS.

Don’t do it! If you want to know more about getting past these gatekeepers, click HERE.

With that essential warning out of the way…

HERE IS THE SMARTER SCRIPT:

SALESPERSON – Hi, this is Pedro Gomez from X company. Are you familiar with us?

PROSPECT – Yes/No.

SALESPERSON – Okay then you should know (or already know) that we’re the largest homebuilder in Mexico.(This lets the prospect know who you are, and also why your company should be respected—objectives 1 and 2. We’re off to a good start)

Now the reason I’m calling you is because we recently commissioned a study of issues facing Mexico and how that’s going to impact you and your employees. (Objective 4, focus on THEM and THEIR needs)

Are you interested in making your employees more secure, less stressed, and more effective on the job? (Again objective 4)

PROSPECT – Uh, of course. (Remember how quickly the prospect said “No” before? This time we don’t give them that option—objective 3, get them saying YES. On that note, what is a question that you can ask right away in your sales scripts that the prospect CAN’T say “No” to? Remember: the best way to close a sale is for the prospect to close themselves)

(Side note: who is leading this conversation? With that last question we passed the ball to the prospect, but they have no choice but to pass it right back)

SALESPERSON – That’s where we can help. You’re probably aware that Mexico is emerging in several areas as a leader in the world market. Since our company is one of the largest companies in Mexico (Objective 2), we feel it is our responsibility to assist this country in any way we can. (This establishes our company as both altruistic and trustworthy, accomplishing objective 5. Now watch as we keep the prospect saying “Yes,” and continue to LEAD the conversation with another question the prospect just can’t say “No” to)

Are you interested in making Mexico a stronger nation if it doesn’t cost you anything to do it?

PROSPECT – Uh, yeah, I guess. (Objective 3 again—what self-respecting Mexican citizen can say no to this?)

SALESPERSON – I’m sure you’re aware that there are government programs that make it so almost every employee you have can own a home. (This is where the sales script begins to educate the prospect. Education based marketing is an incredibly powerful and advanced tool—that we’ve developed into something we call a Core Story—that deserves a whole blog post unto itself. For now we will say only that this approach accomplishes or enhances almost all of our previously established objectives, particularly objectives 4-10)

PROSPECT – I didn’t know that. (But it’s an interesting piece of information, right?—objective 9)

SALESPERSON – Oh it’s a fantastic opportunity for individuals and also for the entirety of Mexico. See we work closely with various government agencies (objective 2) and now have a program that educates you and your staff about the growth of the Mexican economy, why you should have more pride in Mexico, and how almost every employee can afford now to own a home. (Objectives: 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Perhaps you get the picture and I don’t need to point out all the different strategies at work in every line. From here on I’ll mention just the highlights)

You see, if your employees own homes, they are more tied into the job, and need to keep it even more. Do you like keeping good staff around?

PROSPECT – Well, yes, of course. (ANOTHER YES. It’s almost too easy at this point…)

SALESPERSON – Then what I’d like to do is make this program available to your entire staff. Here’s how we do it. You send out a memo and make an announcement to each staff member. We will supply the announcement and memo (See how we leave nothing to chance here? We do all the work for the prospect, but more importantly we’re in complete control. This makes the call to action SIMPLE. People have a tendency to go where there is the least resistance. So we make it as easy on them as possible—objective 11), then we come by at lunch and also after work and talk to the staff. You win from this as people who own their own homes are better citizens, better employees, more stable and more dependent upon their job. Does that make sense to you? (By now you surely don’t need us to point out how this line actively contributes to objectives 3-11. Instead I’d like to guide your attention specifically to objective 8—resetting the prospect’s buying criteria. Two minutes ago this prospect had no buying criteria and was absolutely uninterested in us selling houses to his/her employees. By educating him/her however, we’ve completely changed his/her perspective on the matter. Now the prospect sees what’s in it for him/her. Through educating your prospect—which also accomplishes objectives 7-10 if the information is good—you can give criteria to buyers who had few buying criteria beyond price, and you can change the buying criteria of more knowledgeable buyers into criteria that are favorable to your company)

PROSPECT – Yes, it does. (How can they say no at this point? They have much to gain and all the hard work has been done for them)

SALESPERSON – Great, then we could get in there next week and get started. I’ll get you over the announcement and memo. (All that’s left is to iron out the details)

END SCRIPT.

It should be obvious that strategically and tactically the second script blows the first script out of the water. Remember the salesperson using the first script, stuck in poor strategic position with no tools at his/her disposal? At CHI we don’t believe in sending salespeople into the front lines of capitalism empty-handed; as the second script should demonstrate, we want them armed to the teeth.

RESULTS

Nobody can say that any sales script is effective 100% of the time, but it should be obvious that our script was far superior to the one that the company previously utilized. As you might guess, the results reflected this. Along with other tools we provided, this exact script was responsible for the homebuilding company landing Walmart as a client—dream client. In fact, in total, our efforts for this particular company increased sales to the tune of 700 million dollars over two years.

We want you to have these kinds of results.

Below you’ll find a free download of the template used to create this STRATEGICALLY SUPERIOR sales script. If you like the information in this blog post, feel free to share it on your favorite social media platform(s) and/or with anyone you know who might benefit from it.

Also consider subscribing to our blog. We’re in the process of implementing a new initiative concerning blog posts, and future entries promise to be packed full of concrete and actionable tools to help you succeed.

TEMPLATE DOWNLOAD

Cheers,

The CHI Team

In celebration of my father’s life, here are a couple of free videos for you to enjoy:

The Exact Sales Script Chet Used to Get to the Most Successful People in the World

Now that I’ve shared these with you, I’d love to know, what’s your favorite inspiring quote? Leave it in the comments section below.

With love,

Amanda Holmes

For small businesses, stress is a common occurrence among owners and staff members. Enterprises often lack the resources and capabilities of their larger counterparts, and therefore have to handle many tasks at once rather than delegating them to certain departments or outsourcing them to other companies.

This causes stress levels to rise and can eventually lead to owner and employee burnout if left unchecked. Fortunately, there are many methods that, as a small-business owner, you can implement to reduce stress and keep everyone happy, healthy and motivated.

1. Revise your habits: Everyone has a habit of how they do things, and this also pertains to work. While some habits are highly effective, others may be slowing you and your staff down. USA Today suggests taking a look at your daily work habits and changing them to become more efficient. Altering your commute or taking extra, smaller breaks throughout the day may bring down stress levels.

2. Log off email after work: In the age of smartphones, work is now always in the palm of our hands. However, checking email after you and your employees have left work interferes with any personal or relaxation time. The Washington Post recommends that owners and staff members refrain from sending and answering emails when not at work unless it’s an emergency. Keeping work-related emails in between working hours helps you and your employees unplug and unwind.

3. Lean on other small business: In many cases, taking the time to talk to someone about stress and possible burnout helps alleviate problems. Finding other small-business owners who understand and have experienced what you are going through helps you build a strong support system, Fox Business states.

4. Get to the gym: Working out is a great stress reliever. Spending time in the gym can help you work out frustrations and clear your head, writes USA Today. Encouraging yourself and your staff members to get active helps reduce stress levels and avoid burnout.

5. Spend time with your family: As a small-business owner, you may have had to sacrifice time with your family to get work-related responsibilities taken care of. Unfortunately, this contributes to stress and leads to burnout too often. Fox Business recommends setting aside time each week to spend with family that helps take your mind off of work and gets you in tune with your loved ones.

You can also take advantage of business coaching services to discuss ways in which you can make your small company an enjoyable place to work by engaging staff and keeping yourself and your employees motivated, happy and loyal.

Just like any other task, putting practices in place to decrease stress takes time and effort. However, by implementing strategies for you and your employees to get rid of stress, your operations will reap the benefits of a more energized workforce, leading to small business success.

You work hard to ensure your operations are efficient, whether it’s through hiring top talent, keeping customer satisfaction high or developing innovative products. You aim for business success in all of your endeavors, but it’s important to know that you need to lay the foundation for a successful enterprise.

Incorporating strategies into your business that pave the way to prosperity can be done at any time. However, you want to be sure you are giving both yourself and your employees the necessary tools to become a successful in business. There are a number of methods that can help you get on the path to becoming an efficient and strong company.

Think positive
Having a positive mindset can do wonders. Being optimistic about your business and where it’s going will certainly be contagious for your employees and customers. Small Business Trends recommends establishing a positive work environment that encourages your staff to be more optimistic about their jobs and the future of the company.

Have a solid vision in place
As an owner, you likely have a mental picture of what you want your business to become in the future. However, Business Insider suggests that you create a business growth plan that focuses on exactly what needs to be done to get to there. Having goals in place is an important part of the process, but without outlining how you are going to reach them, your business vision will never materialize.

Be a great employer
If you want great employees, you need to be a great employer. Business Insider writes that you can accomplish this by providing staff with the tools needed to realize success within your company. This can include training sessions, career advancement opportunities and rewards for hard work.

Appreciate your customers
Just as with showing your employees how much they matter, you need to do the same with your customers. Showing patrons you appreciate them can go a long way in boosting satisfaction and bringing in new customers. Business Insider suggests focusing on making your products interesting and innovative as well as giving exceptional service to patrons.

Establish peer networks
You can even go outside of your company to find an effective tool for business success. Small Business Trends states that networking gives you the ability to connect with others in your industry, allowing you to bounce ideas off of your peers and collaborate to develop new ideas that benefit your operations.

A solid disaster recovery strategy is part of any effective business growth plan. Even if a disaster never occurs, it will give you, as an owner, peace of mind knowing that you have something in place to keep your operations running. Even though developing a disaster plan may sound daunting, all it takes is some research and preparation to create a strategy that will stand throughout any possible disaster.

Business disasters can range from natural occurrences, such as hurricanes, tornadoes or floods, to more technical issues, such as a cyberattack or data center loss. Whatever the case, getting a plan in place now means your business can recover more quickly and efficiently should an emergency happen.

– Assess the various risks: Businesses that are located in the Southeast United States may not have to worry about extremely cold weather conditions possibly disrupting their operations every year, but they do have to worry about tornadoes. Companies in every region of the country have to deal with various weather-related disasters that happen in their areas, so figuring out what could potentially throw off your enterprise for a few days is the first step to determining how you can handle them, suggests the Minnesota Society of Certified Public Accountants.

You should also take the time to assess any technical dangers, such as information loss due to hackers, the source recommends. This will help you lay out the proper protocols for recovery.

– Create a business continuity plan: Crain’s Detroit Business states that companies need to develop a strong business continuity plan that outlines what steps will be taken in case of an emergency. The source also recommends that you determine which staff members will be in charge of which responsibilities so that employees know who to reach out to.

– Take a look at your systems: Looking at the systems you have in place can help you poke holes in anything that could be severely impacted by a disaster, writes the Minnesota Society of CPAs. Do your employees have a way to work if your company’s Internet is down for an extended period? What if your facilities are damaged? Is there somewhere else you can operate out of while recovering? These questions can give you more insight into improvements that can be made to your disaster recovery plan.

Whatever the disaster, whether it’s weather-related or tech-based, you need a plan to get your operations back in line should something occur. Also, having your employees provide their advice and input on the strategy ensures everyone is onboard and prepared for anything that happens.

There is one ingredient that every owner, worker and company needs in order to realize business success: productivity.

There are many moving parts within a business. Whether it’s hiring talented employees, developing innovative products and services, or effectively reaching out to customers, each aspect is vital to operations. However, there is one ingredient that every owner and employee needs in order to realize business success: productivity.

Without productive staff members, processes and procedures, organizations may run into issues with completing important tasks and reaching their established goals. Therefore, it should be one of a business owner’s top priorities to encourage productivity and efficiency throughout the company. By making productivity a focus, owners can motivate their staff to help streamline operations and bring about success.

Make productivity a collaborative approach
Becoming more productive as a business owner may start as an individual effort, but in order to bring about change within the entire enterprise, employees need to adopt the same mindset.

There are several habits that both owners and employees can adopt to boost productivity. In an article for LinkedIn, human resources and strategy consultant Jappreet Sethi stated that writing out a plan – whether the task is big or small – is the first important step. By doing this, you and your employees are able to see the various steps and procedures that have been laid out. Additionally, this provides you with a blueprint of your goals as well as clear path to completion, Sethi wrote.

He also suggested that you, as an owner, and your employees come up with a time frame for the completion of each step and the project as a whole. This puts a system into place that allows you to monitor how much progress is being made and which tasks still remain. Sethi stated that time management is one of the most important components for productivity and it’s essential you and your staff members make a list of priorities to ensure time is being spent wisely and critical tasks are being completed.

There are many strategies that owners can follow, such as business coaching, to implement productive practices within their organizations. But in the end, owners and employees need to work together to become more efficient.

Be mindful of productivity habits
Productivity requires owners and employees to think through their work and stay on top of what needs to be done. However, there are other aspects that as an owner, you need to be mindful of if you want to make your business operations more efficient. Business 2 Community recommended letting go of the need for everything to be perfect. A lot of time can be wasted by trying to make every process error free.

In addition, B2C suggested that owners forget the old way of doing things if a new practice is more effective. By taking feedback to improve current procedures, productivity can easily be boosted and business success can follow.

Whether it’s from an owner or an employee, being committed to a job is key for business success.

Hard work and dedication go a long way within a business. Providing customer service, creating exciting products and reaching out to potential patrons are all tasks that require motivation. Whether from an owner or employee, being committed to the job is critical for business success.

However, there are times when being motivated is not enough. Being happy and optimistic about work is also helpful in order to achieve real results. Fostering these feelings within a business environment can sometimes be difficult, but not impossible. By focusing on making employees happier and more engaged, you, as an owner, can ensure that your staff members are putting forth the effort to see your company thrive.

Small businesses more optimistic
Optimism is being felt nationwide by small businesses, according to a recently released report from the National Federation of Independent Businesses. The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index revealed an optimism uptick in May among companies participating in the poll. The Index now stands at 96.6, which is a 1.4 point increase from April. It also represents the highest level of optimism by small businesses since September 2007.

Contributing to the increased positive outlook are expectations for the economy to continue to improve. Small business owners also have plans to hire more employees based on an anticipated jump in sales revenues.

Based on these results, it’s clear to see that business owners are steadily gaining more confident in various company-related conditions. However, if you want to see realize ultimate success, you need to make it a priority to boost optimism among your employees.

Creating an optimistic working environment
As an owner, you already know that if your employees are not happy with their jobs, your operations can suffer. Fortunately, there are many strategies that you can follow to bring optimism into your enterprise.

Perhaps one of the best ways, as suggested by Business Community, is to always be optimistic, as the feeling is often contagious. By doing this, you are leading by example. Being positive about your work and your business goals will certainly rub off on your staff members.

B2C also recommends allowing your employees to be more creative in their roles and give them the freedom to frequently provide feedback and offer their opinions on business aspects when necessary. This can be accomplished by sitting down with each worker and talking through their suggestions, or by using employee assessment tools to gather their thoughts.

There are other ways to spread optimism throughout your company. TheNewsReports.com suggests providing workers with the opportunity to improve their skills or learn more about the business and its goals. You should also take the time to acknowledge accomplishments and highlight when excellent work has been done. This makes staff members more optimistic, not only about their jobs, but about the company as a whole.

Effectively managing different kinds of personalities can help a small business owner achieve success.

When it comes to staff management, as a business owner you have to know how to deal with many different kinds of people. This is a very delicate skill that takes time to develop, but it is critical to the success of your organization if you want to have an effective workforce that contributes to the growth of your company.

Employee personality tests are helpful in identifying the many different kinds of employees that exist. But whether you use this method or not, Inc. Magazine states that there are five traits – anger addicts, narcissists, passive-aggressive, gossipers, guilt trippers – that every owner must be on the lookout for. These individuals can make things difficult not only for you as the leader of the company, but for other members of your staff as well.

However, the first step in effective management is being able to accurately identify the personalities. Once this occurs, it becomes easier to not only prepare for what these individuals bring to the table, but also in knowing how to mold them into being valuable members of the organization. Failure in this area could have serious implications for the business, but mastery of this skill will make you more prepared on how to deal with similar individuals in the future.

Employee personality traits to be on the lookout for
Of the five difficult personality traits, two could pose the most difficult challenge. The first are those who enjoy gossiping. These individuals can make a work environment become toxic very quickly. Inc. suggests not to get caught in the trap of participating in such trivial talk and instead, nip it in the bud as soon as you see it.

Not only should this help limit future incidents, but it also presents an opportunity to turn the behavior around and encourage the employee to use their gift of gab in a more positive manner.

The other type of individual to be mindful of is the one who always seems to be perpetually angry. The magazine suggests quickly informing them that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated under any circumstances. However, this also a chance to uncover the deeper reason for such emotional and negative outbursts, and a savvy leader can use this as an opportunity to forge a bond and a deeper level of trust and admiration between themselves and the disgruntled employee.

Don’t leave anyone out
Obviously the primary theme of this article is in dealing with difficult employees, but it’s important to understand that other staff members need to feel as if they’re important as well. The Guardian writes that it is very easy for workers to feel as if they’re on the outside looking in, so it’s imperative as an owner to know how to handle these individuals as well.

The newspaper says that there are a number of different factors that can cause an individual to feel alone inside of a workplace, and awareness of these issues can strengthen anyone’s leadership skills. Small-business ownership presents many challenges, but with the right people skills, you can develop an effective and productive staff that can help an organization grow.