One of the greatest skills for connecting and reconnecting with people is empathy, particularly if you’re trying to win an ex back.Empathy is the ability to communicate that you understand how someone else feels. And although this might not seem like an important skill to have, don’t underestimate it! Using empathy is one of the fastest ways to build (or rebuild) trust. It’s also a way to get people to like you. If, however, you are using empathy for the sole purpose of manipulating someone, chances are it will not work like you want it to. For example, picture a used car salesman trying to ‘learn about and connect with you” while you’re on the lot looking at used cars. It’s pretty obvious that the used car salesman has an ulterior motive for trying to build rapport with him and get you to trust him.

So how can you start to master the art of empathy? The first step is you have to care about the person you are talking to. The concerns of that person have to be your concerns as well. And not only do you have to know what these concerns are, but you have to be able to voice them in a way that shows your concern, without sounding like a ‘know it all’.

When you can describe the concerns or what’s bothering someone as good as that person, then you’re on your way to building trust and establishing rapport. Part of this includes identifying the feelings that go along with the concerns- this is the part that people connect with.

So let’s take your ex, for example. Have you really identified the concerns of your ex and are you able to express them as well as he or she can?

Maybe the break up happened because one partner thought that the other was moving too fast. Let’s say that John broke up with Sally because he thought that she was moving too fast in the relationship. What can Sally say to John to possibly get back on track and maybe even start seeing him again?

If Sally knows that the reason that John broke up with her was due to him thinking that she was moving too fast, then she has to express this information to John in a way that encapsulates John’s feelings and fears- she has to see things from his point of view. What might a conversation like this sound like?

How about this:

Sally: “Hey John, thanks for meeting with me.”

John: “No problem, Sally. what’s up?”

Sally: “Well, I’ve thought a lot about what you said to me, you know, about rushing things, and I think that you were right. In looking back, I think I was trying to rush things in the relationship that maybe weren’t there yet, and in the process, I must have made you feel really uncomfortable. And I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for making you feel that way.”

John: “Well, it did seem like you were taking things a little fast.

Sally: “You’re right. And now that I think about it, I may have made you feel a little overwhelmed, especially when I was talking about moving in or getting a place of our own. After thinking about it, I don’t think that we’re anywhere near that yet.”

John: “I agree with you, I don’t think that we were quite ready to get our own place or anything.

Because Sally is able to summarize not only the content of why she thinks John broke up with her, but also the feelings that went along with the content, she is able to start building the relationship again. The fact that John agrees with her is confirmation that she was on the right track with her comments to John.

Now, this is not obviously not going to be enough to send John running back into her arms, but it is the first step in rebuilding the relationship if that’s what Sally chooses to do. And by continuing to use empathy and see things from John’s point of view, she will continue to build the relationship with John.

The phrase “pick up line” is just short of oxymoron but pick up lines have been in use so long that the name is synonymous with an accepted phase or statement. Pick up lines have long been crafted as a play on words, wishful questions or statements of sarcasm, irony and satire.

A pick up line is a statement or a question that demands an answer. The analogy of a pick-up line is that of a salesman knocking on a door; the door opens, he slides his foot in as an attempt to continue his spiel. There are tales of many a salesman with broken toes just as there are of pickup line delivery persons with slapped faces and injured egos. The intent of a “pick up line” is a lead-in to pick up further communication. I borrowed two pick-up lines from John Shore that displayed irony and a crafty play on words using two well known’s in history:

• Noah: There’s room for one more!
• Vincent Van Gogh: Ear’s lookin’ at you!

Corny?

The word “Corny” is in the same family with “Pick-up lines” but after years of associating what we consider unsophisticated, trite or otherwise less than fitting to our intelligence we have nicknamed such as “corny”. With that boost of slang knowledge you will now be able to determine what a corny pick up line is. I might caution that the receiver’s perception of the pick- up line will ultimately determine it to be classified corny or not.

Top 10 “pick- up” lines that are not corny. Compliments of Line Shrine

1. You: “Are you from Tennessee?”Answer: “No, why?’You: “You’re the only ten I see.”
2. You: “If you were a new sandwich at McDonalds, you’d be called the McGorgeous”.
3. You: “There’s something wrong with my cell phone”,(shaking phone and opening it). Answer:”Oh really, what’s that”? You:” It’s just that—ah-your numbers not in it”.
4. She’s sitting at a table. You, grab a chair and say.”Sorry I’m late traffic was crazy!
5. “My boys over there bet that I wouldn’t be able to start a conversation with the most beautiful girl in the room. Would you like a drink with their money?”
6. You’ve have eye contact with a gal, now walk up and say ” I don’t like flirting from far away.”
7. “Excuse me, I’ve had a horrible day today but it always cheers me up when I see a beautiful girl smile, can you please smile for me?”
8. “Let’s have breakfast together tomorrow; shall I call you or nudge you?”
9. “Your place or mine? Tell you what? I’ll flip a coin. Head at my place, tail at yours.”
10. “The only thing your eyes haven’t told me is your name.”

Disclaimer: You’re absolutely on your own and we accept no responsibility of ill outcome for use of the “Pick-up lines” contained herein.

As the recession bites even harder this year and prices are spiraling out of control it makes sense to try and save as much money as you can when making major purchases such as your next good used car.

However, when you look around on the forecourts it is as though the used car dealers have not been told that there is a world recession on and they have increased their prices much more than expected especially in the last few months.

Of course you could go through the painful process of trying to haggle with the used car salesman and expecting to come out with a good deal, but when has that ever happened? You usually know in the back of your mind that the salesman has somehow got the best of the deal and you spent more than you budgeted for.

You could always buy privately but that brings its own problems as you are never completely sure that you are not buying a used car that has been in a crash or that still has finance on it or has even been stolen. Also you may still be paying over the odds for a vehicle that may not be as good as it looks.

If you could only find out where you can get a quality used car at a less than trade price then you would have some money left over for that family holiday you so desperately need but in the back of your mind you know you cannot afford both.

If you are like me whenever you see that shiny BMW being driven by someone else you feel that pang of regret that you do not own such a nice vehicle and you would be so happy if you could just afford to go and buy it. But where are you going to come up with the thirty to forty thousand dollars that you need and even if you put the car on finance how would you afford the repayments?

It would be nice if there were car sales rooms where they looked after your interests and did not try and squeeze every last dollar from your wallet but unfortunately this is not the case. Human nature being what is is means that you have to be very careful when making a large purchase such as a new car and you need to keep all your wits about you so you do not make a costly mistake.

I am an insurance salesman and I think that most of the business sucks. Here is what I mean.

Daily if not almost hourly I am approached by someone new who wants me to sell their products for them. The pitch is always the same. Commissions and service.

If I sell their products I will get higher commissions. Experience has taught me that this is nothing but a lie. Almost all commissions paid by insurance companies are the same. The difference is how much are these marketing companies taking off the top. They all want me to sell their products so they can make more money off my hard work and my personal investment in marketing.

It is nice deal they have, I work and they get paid.

Think of an insurance product like a three legged stool. One leg is the client’s interest, one leg is the company’s interest and the other leg is the marketer’s interest. Anytime more is added to one leg than the other the stool is lopsided. All three legs need to be equal or someone is taken advantage of. So when a marketing company offers me an “out of whack” commission I know where it is coming from…the company, NO! It is coming from the customer. It has to!

All aspects need to be fair and if one is more than the others the stool falls over.

Then there is their other pitch….service.

I always substitute the service word with the GREED word. I mean exactly how much service do I need? I handle my own applications, I transfer my own money and I deliver my own policies. What sort of service do they offer? You are correct, nothing. For what a marketing company makes off my sales they can do a lot more than service as far as I am concerned. What could they do?

o Pay for marketing and

o Pay bonuses

Then there is this that always stops them in their tracks. I will never do business with anyone who doesn’t give me two things:

1. A pre-release so I can move anytime without their permission

2. Full disclosure of how much they make on my sales

Make them tell you and always demand full disclosure. Disclosure is not their favorite subject and very few will actually share their contracts. Hold your ground because they will eventually show you. What if they are making too much of an override, is it ever fair? The answer is yes! There are a few marketing companies out there who do a great job and provide enough benefits to actually earn the overrides. Search them out; they are the ones to do business with. Here are my favorites:

o Financial Independence Group (FIG Marketing)…North Carolina

o Northwest Planning…Spokane, Washington

o The Annuity Source…Seattle, Washington

o Brokers International…Iowa

To be honest I really like selling insurance. It provides me with a nice income as well as total management of my time. Select the best marketing partners for you, but always demand disclosure. The best ones will be happy to share.

Load refers to the fee that has to be paid to the salesperson who has convinced investors to invest their money in a specific mutual fund. The fee you pay in form of a load to the salesperson that doesn’t reach to the financial advisory. Simply, it sprightly moves to the pocket of the salesman. If you want to know what are the loads disadvantages, then you need to take a look on these facts which can explain you more about it. These points are discussed below which are very essential to know before hiring a salesman services for your company.

Loads play no role in mutual funds

This is a kind of a fee that investor should pay to a salesperson to search the right place of their money. This is one of greatest disadvantages of the loads. So, when you are starting a mutual fund business, you don’t look for the loads services it can hamper your business goodwill and reputation. It is very complicated for the loaded mutual fund to pick with the load free amount for its some essential factors.

Higher expenses

If you are investing your money without loads expenses, then you will be charged less from the funds expenditure. Here, the term expenses that refers to the loads chargers which are generally spend for finding the assets. Higher expenses related to loads are the most effective disadvantages. Companies going through such phase can really come across huge expenses.

There is hardly any difference in the return value

There is hardly any difference in returns. For a long time it’s been watched that there is hardly any difference among the performance of the loads and the loaded ones. The only difference you will find is in terms of the commission that needs to be paid to the salesperson. As a result of which, the fund results will differ from one period to the other, however, the general pattern will remain the same. Debate about which of the funds are better, no load and loaded counterparts, is one that cannot end up very soon. Although differences between 2 kinds are numerous, lots of writers try and narrow them to case of who will win from deal: investor or broker. It is inappropriate to claim you are better off in case, you invest in the load free funds in place of parking money in the loaded counterpart.

In approaching this topic I decided that the best way to illustrate a methodology for someone wishing to develop the skills needed for a successful career in insurance is to describe the ways in which I acquired the knowledge that enabled me to make my own financial independence.

It may surprise you to know that the training that prepared me best was not anything to do with insurance, selling first and foremost is a communication skill so education in terms of command of a good vocabulary and the ability to express an idea is fundamental.

Next comes the ability to present your idea to an audience whether it be one other person or a group of people. This is probably the one skill that most people find daunting. I know from my own experience, I was quite articulate but the thought of standing up in front of a group of people frightened the living daylights out of me, yet at the same time I knew this was something I had to overcome if I wanted to make a living as a salesman. The solution came to me from a book. So many answers have come to me from books that they have become my No 1 resource for information on any subject I am interested in learning about. Anyway this particular book was “How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success In Selling” by Frank Betger one of the all-time great Insurance Salesman.

In it he described the exact same fear of standing before a group to sell and the solution he found was a local Public Speaking Group where in a very short while he was able to conquer his fear.

That was good enough for me so I found such a group in town and I joined. All I had to do was to pick a subject I knew a lot about and talk about it for 2 minutes. Apart from the instructor we were all in the same boat with our fears but because the task was so small everyone managed to stumble through it. Little by little the time we were asked to speak for was increased, each little success added to the feeling that we were in control and soon I was enjoying my new found power.

And that is what it is, the ability to stand up and express yourself in an exited and animated way is a valuable power that surprisingly few people possess. If you are in the insurance business Betger’s book is required reading, It is still in print at Amazon.

Like most other salesmen I was looking for a set of words or a script that would clinch the sale under any circumstances, so I joined the local Life insurance Society branch meeting to talk to my peers about such magic words but like me they mostly had the usual array of rebuttals and closing tactics.

I did eventually find the one magic word and that word is “ATTITUDE”. This I learned from a series of Audio tapes by Earl Nightingale. He is an inspirational leader and is co-founder of the famous publishers ‘Connant Nightingale’. His works and those of some of the world’s most accomplished Sales trainers became my No 2 resource. I remember driving around every day between calls listening intently to the words of people like Brian Tracy, Jay Abraham and Stephan Covey, what a great education in success that was. As I continued reading and listening I discovered the secrets of success, like the Pareto Principle, Time Management and Henry Ford’s Principles of Mass Production all off which I applied to my work.

I had the good fortune to be introduced to a member of The Million Dollar Round Table which is an International Insurance organisation. He was leading the Life Insurance Association in the UK at the time and I was persuaded to Qualify as a member and attend their annual conference in America.

That meeting changed my life. The buzz of the 6000 attendees and the way that the greatest Insurance Salesmen of their day, stood on the platform day after day to share their stories of how they had built their success, excited and inspired me so much that I have attended that meeting every year since for the past 30 years.

Soon after that meeting I decided to Specialize in Selling Pension Schemes to Company Directors and groups of Employees. I automated the production of appointments for myself by using a part-time Phone sales person who I had trained to make appointments for me with LTD Company Directors.

I had prepared and rehearsed a presentation that would convince 90% of the audience to join my scheme on first hearing and I also set up a part-time clerical assistant to deal with the admin of the proposals.

Then I started to earn my fortune.

I subsequently went on to multiply my system across the country through branches in which I recruited appointment makers (telesales) and salespeople who I had trained to give my Presentation (my set of Magic Words). Later I was able to repeat the process with a colleague when we formed what we built into the largest network of Insurance brokers in the UK during the following eight years.

I have since given ‘word for word copy’ of the presentation that made me successful to hundreds of insurance people in our network and have been surprised by the fact that hardly anyone has taken the words and run with them.

Which brings me to this conclusion, you have to make your own set of magic words in a presentation, based on an undeniable belief in the value of your product and service and presented in an enthusiastic and dramatic way while answering all the objections you have ever met so that no obstacles are left to stop your prospect from buying.

I graduated from college in February of 1971, Mr. JKE had his motel manager Durrell Dallas ask me if I want to become a management trainee. The restaurant manager had just quit or been fired. Of course, I said yes. I wanted to be a manager. So, I went from being an auditor to a management trainee.

JK, the owner, was my mentor for the years 1970 to 1974. He owned the motel where I worked. JK was in the process of adding five motels to the three he owned. He started as a filling station owner. He was straightforward about what he expected and he would let you know when you failed.

Durrell said we would start in the restaurant, I noticed that most of my training was standing behind the Viking baker oven and shooting the bull. Then after a couple of weeks, I knew why.

Durrell left the company to be the General Manager of the Timme Plaza hotel in Wilmington, North Carolina. Durrell was in JK’s family he married the nice of Jk’s wife. I guess he had enough of JK. Durrell was always nervous, especially when he was around JK.

The day Durrell left for his new job, Mr. JK and his wife, Gladys, asked me to sit with them to discuss their plan with me. They asked me if I thought I could manage the restaurant. Ms. E would be the General Manager and I would manage the restaurant. Of course, I said I could.

This was the beginning of my struggle in management. I knew absolutely nothing about management or the restaurant business. I would figure it out along the way. I did not know figuring out the way would last over forty years. This was as if I had been pushed off the diving board on the deep end of the pool without knowing how to swim. I was too dumb to say no. I do know my answer changed my life.

“Don’t worry Jim we will help you,’ Jerry Townsend said this to me the day after I made manager. Jerry was a waitress who worked at the hotel for years.

She was right. I soon learned to ask for help and listen to experienced employees.

As a new manager thinking you know can lead to problems. At the Ramada Inn South restaurant, the cooks placed a list on a corkboard of items they needed for food preparation. One of the first days of being their manager the list had an item listed as “chicken”. I knew where we got chicken. I phoned the supplier. I told the shipping clerk to send me some chicken. He said what size. Damn, I did not know they came in sizes. I did not want to appear to be stupid and replied with an air of confidence, “Oh, send me some pretty good size ones”.

The next day, I came into the kitchen and Flossie, the lunch cook, asked me if I had ordered the chicken. I said I had. She said,” Where are they?” I replied,” in the cooler”. She said she had looked there and she could not find them. I said come with me. I opened the cooler and opened the lid on the box and there was chicken. She looked down into the box and said,” Lordly mercy, Mr. Jim, you know them’s hens”.

I asked her what she meant and she said she needed fryers. She informed me that they should be 2-2 ¾ lbs. I drove to Peco Foods the supplier and got her the fryers.

Another source of knowledge was the salesman that came to the restaurant. I told each of them, “I do not know anything about the restaurant business. But, if I find that you have screwed me I will never do business with you again.” This made the basis of our relationship my ignorance and my acknowledgment of their expertise.

The Ziegler meat salesman taught me about steaks. The Sexton salesman taught me about canned foods. The Empire Seafood salesman about seafood. The Edison Dickel salesman taught me about frozen foods. They told me the price is not always the determination of the best buy.

What I thought was good deals came with a cost to the reputation of our restaurant. For example, I purchased some bacon-wrapped beef filets from Swift at a good price. Grover Jeter, the Ziegler salesman, showed me why I got them so cheap. He removed the bacon and unwrapped the steaks. He explained that the filets were not center cut. They were from the end of the filet and wrapped in bacon to look like center cuts. Then Grover said, “This is not the type of food you want to serve in this restaurant.” He was right.

I took many other actions, created an eleven-day rotating lunch menu, organized the storage areas, made sure we met health department requirements, listened to employees, and asked hundreds of questions. These actions led to the best financial performance the restaurant had up to that time. Also, we increased our sales and customer satisfaction.

I learned that human management is the most important action I took to achieve what we wanted. I learned that humans have feelings, processes don’t. Management is about directing human interactions that generate success.

For a lot of people trying to reach grow their client base, the question of how to approach social influences on the consumer can be daunting.

True, it is not easy – it takes dedication, serious thought, and considerable research. Figuring out what factors and people are at play when in comes to social influences on the consumer will get easier the more you do it, but it is always a challenging part of marketing.

Conventional marketing focuses primarily on reaching out directly to the consumer, but more sophisticated marketing methods focus less on the consumer themselves, and more on the events or people who influence a buyer.

It is called influence marketing – an all important means of marketing that takes into account social influences, or the ‘culture of the consumer’. Knowing who influences a buyer is an important step to knowing the right message to deliver – and how to deliver it.

For example, a car salesman who wants to sell a minivan to a father of four might take his wife to one side of the room and highlight its safety features and carrying capacity. That same salesman may tell the friend of the young man kicking the tires of a sports car how impressive he will be with the ladies behind the wheel of that car. The assumption here, is that the husband in this scenario trusts the opinion of his wife; and the friend the young man he brought along is with him to pitch in his two cents as well!

The difference between making a sale and letting the consumer walk out the door often comes down not to convincing the potential buyer, but convincing the influencer. And sometimes ‘the influencer’ isn’t a person, but a trend or matter of perspective.

In this case, determining the social influences that guide a particular consumer should be the top priority for those in the world of marketing. So get researching!

Out of all of the skills that you can learn as a business profession – selling is by far the most important. No matter where you are, everything is sales. However, because of peddlers and high-pressure sales tactics, many people look at it as something very taboo.

My hope is that this article gives you a better look at what sales really is and how it can greatly affect your career if you are in the corporate world, or your business is you are an entrepreneur. At the end of the day, everything comes back to how well you can sell.

The first rule in trying to make a sale is to know why you are trying to do it in the first place. If you are doing it just to make money, then you’ve already lost. Your role is to add value to the life of your prospect. Your product or service should benefit them in some way that no other product or service. Your goal is to make your prospect safer, richer, better, or happier depending on what you have to offer.

The next rule is that you need to look past what your product is and see what it will do for your client in the future. For example, if you’re in the web development industry, you are not building a website for a prospect – you are giving them a retirement plan. Their goal is that their new website will bring them new business, which will then lead to riches, and finally to a better quality of life. When you understand the benefits of your product, you can better sell it.

Lastly, learning to sell is about building relationships. Your relationship with a prospect or client does not end when you close the deal. On the contrary, a good salesperson makes sure that they build a long-lasting relationship. It’s not just because the customer may buy from you again, but because you are in the business of making people’s lives better! It’s those salespeople that are “done and run” that make the profession look bad.

In conclusion, when you understand that a salesman is a profession that is geared towards helping other people to live better lives you’ll start to see it in a whole new light. It’s a taboo art that doesn’t really have to be, and a skill that will continue to change lives every day!

Salesmanship is a personal action or effort on the part of an individual which is intended to bring about the sale of the goods for sale. More broadly speaking, salesmanship is the art of selling something to somebody, and everything which contributes to the consummation of this exchange is necessarily a part of salesmanship.

Salesmanship differs from demonstration in that the latter may not include the former, and it is like demonstration because good salesmanship usually includes some form of demonstration. Salesmanship is not unlike the plea of the lawyer before the court or the jury. Both contain arguments; and, in both cases, the presenter, either of arguments or of goods or of both, is attempting to make the party addressed do what he asks him to do.

On the one hand there is something for sale, whether it be a life insurance policy, an automobile, a suit of clothes, or a barrel of potatoes. The owner of what is for sale, or his representative, desires to sell what he has to somebody who wants it or can be made to want it. To do this, he employs every method which will in any way influence the buyer, including printed matter, e-mail, websites, pay-per-click advertising, television commercials, radio ads, handsome office fittings, and, most important of all, a proper presentation of the thing for sale adding personality and voice to the selling argument.

The salesman exists for two reasons: first, custom; secondly, because it is obvious that even the best informed buyer cannot know everything, and the well- posted salesman is in a position to give him information about the article for sale. There is opportunity for a discussion person-to-person, and for the presentation of argument; and this information and these arguments cannot be given with any degree of fullness by the printed page or advertisement. Or, if they could be, they would not even then take the place of personal information-giving and custom-made argument.

Salesmanship cannot be analyzed with chemical or other exactness. To define it, to separate it into its component parts, would be as difficult as it would be to analyze ability and to tell what it consists of. Yet we all know what salesmanship is, and we are able to measure the results of its qualities and quantities.