What routines are preventing you from increasing your sales?

Whether you realize it or not, you are a creature of habit. Unless you do shift work, you probably get up at the same time everyday, follow the same routine to wake up and get yourself ready for the day, drive the regular route to work, do the same things once you get to work, and take the same route home at the end of the day. Once there, you probably have dinner, watch television or read the newspaper, and follow some sort of routine once it’s time to go to bed. You set the alarm for the same time and when it sounds the next day, you start the cycle over again.

Don’t get me wrong. Routines can be good. They help us improve our productivity. They allow us to multi-task. They make us feel comfortable, safe, and secure. They reduce stress. Plus, when we have developed a great routine, we can often generate more business. However, the drawback is that they can be difficult to break away from.
When you become accustomed to a specific schedule, it can be easy to forget changes in it. For example, if you usually schedule your first client meeting after 9:30 it is very easy to miss a meeting that was recently scheduled at 8:30. I recently encountered two situations that relate to this.

The first was an appointment with my massage therapist. For several years, she scheduled her appointments on the hour or half-hour. So when she booked my massage at fifteen minutes after the hour, she forgot about it and was several minutes late.
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You may be one of the growing number of people who want a home that has the quality and craft that only architectural plans can provide, without investing the time and/or money necessary to have an architect create a custom design for you. To quote Sarah Susanka — author of the highly acclaimed book The Not So Big House — from an article she wrote for Fine Homebuilding titled “Why architects should sell house plans” (something they’ve never done before), “Many of these people [potential stock plan purchasers] want the quality that comes with the Ralph Lauren or Liz Claiborne label, without having to hire Ralph or Liz themselves.”

Until recently, people wanting to build a new home have had just two choices: hire an architect or a professional designer; or purchase one of the tens of thousands of generic stock plans available in magazines and on the Internet. Now there is a new and exciting alternative that provides the quality of an architect-designed home plan for the price of a stock plan.

First the definitions: Our (architectural) plans are complete working drawings by licensed architects and designers, created for a specific family, that enabled that family to build a one-of-a-kind home. The plans originally cost tens of thousands of dollars to create (architects typically charge 10 to 15 percent of the total cost to build!), and took six months to a year to produce. The vast majority of stock plans, however, were created as inventory, to be sold to builders, developers and private parties via stock plan websites and magazines. In most cases there was no client involved in their creation, and no house was built from the plans prior to them being offered for sale. The plan’s “cost” is the time the designer spent drawing them with a CADD (or similar) software program, with slight changes made to produce many different versions. Both types of plans include enough information to enable a builder to construct a house. But the similarity ends there.

It starts with the way they were created. Architectural plans are the product of countless hours of conversation, interpretation, drawing and design. A family with specific real-life needs worked with the architect, who then translated those needs into a beautiful and functional home design. Neighborhood surroundings, climate, topography and personal aesthetic are all taken into consideration. A design is created from scratch to fulfill that family’s requirements as well as their dreams.
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What’s the a biggest motivational tool out there when you start an internet home based business? Well for me it was the anticipation of making my first sale.

When I started my internet home based business I quickly learned that nothing comes for free and you have to work at it to become successful. I thought that I could make lots of money in a short period of time; well I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Yes, I got into the get rich quick scams to begin with, searching on the internet for ways to make money fast. First there was the “get paid for doing surveys” scheme. Then I thought that I could sell things on e-bay to make a quick buck. While there are lots of people doing this it’s not a way to get rich quick. Next was the pyramid scheme. As time went on the money kept going out and nothing was coming in.

I could have quit there but I was determined. I changed my way of thinking and started to search for legitimate ways to make money online. That’s when I found my first no “B.S” internet home based business. I learned everything there was to learn about it, applied the strategies and then reread it all to see if there was anything I missed. Doing those simple things can make all the difference.
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Alvin Donovan has presented seminars in many different countries and this has given him the opportunity to meet and interview some of the most successful people in the world. What Alvin Donovan has discovered is that they all are able to instantly garner rapport with other and make themselves more successful than the rest. They are strategies you can use easily and naturally to begin to Make More Money NOW: Physical rapport- The key to all persuasion
Alvin Donovan teaches in his seminars- The fundamental basis of all world class excellent persuasion skills is to harmoniously develop, coordinate and utilize all of the strength instruments you were born with (mind, body, senses, intellect, intuition), with the intention to achieve your outcome through the systematic employment of psychologically and physiologically sound and proven techniques centuries of research. To start with you must realize that you cannot not influence others through all of your behaviors and someone else cannot not be influenced by all of your behaviors in some way. It is your task to discover the most elegant means to use this knowledge to continually achieve your outcomes, or not. So you must realize:

1. The persons process of doing it is more important than what the content is.

2. You need to use your strength instruments (everything you see, hear, feel, think) to calibrate (i.e. Skin tone or color, lower lip or breathing changes) what is going on with the other person and keep cycling for intensity until you achieve your outcome.

In other words you simply:

A) Find out how they normally do it.
B) Find out how they need it to be delivered. What they want, when and how
many times they want it etc.
C) Do it that way.

Remember- Your job is to elegantly elicit and calibrate the process of how they prefer to buy and what is personally important and then cycle for intensity and get out of the way between them and your product.

Rapport- The way to easily and naturally eliminate perceived differences between yourself and the other person .

Benefits of this article:

* establish rapport in 30 seconds or less with anyone.
* build trust into every communication.
* send subliminal messages of likeness.
* improve your range of responsiveness.
* achieve personal and professional flexibility.
* establish deep bonds of trust-quickly.
* covertly calibrate that you have rapport.
* know when you have made your point so you can avoid “over influencing”.
* covertly calibrate when a person changes states.
* using your senses to develop understanding of others.
* establishing meaningful communication.
* improving your responsiveness range.
* build trust into your communication.
* verifying the current level of rapport.
* getting clients to focus on you.

Would it be helpful to have a way to get people to naturally like you? To have clients immediately bond with you? Would it be helpful to be able to speak with your clients in such a way that your message is irresistible?

How can I easily and naturally do this?

Alvin Donovan teaches to focus on building rapport through becoming as much like the other person as possible- eliminating as much perceived differences as we possibly can between us.

People like most those who are most like them.

The conscious mind is that part of your being that can best be defined by saying what it does. It enables you to shift your attention from one thing to another. Therefore, what you are aware of is that part of you that would be called your conscious mind.
Your unconscious mind is that part of you that contains your long term memories. It is also is in charge of automatic behavior-that is-reflex action.

In fact, when Alvin Donovan gives a seminar his outcome for you is for you to easily and naturally become more persuasive-automatically- by evaluating the way you automatically respond in persuasion situations, and then make strategic changes that will enhance the process.

In a study of communication at the University of Pennsylvania in 1970 (“Kinesics and Communication,” R. Birdwhistle, University of Pennsylvania, 1970) the researchers determined that in communication, only seven percent of what we communicate is the result of words that we say, or of the content of our communication.

Thirty eight percent is a result of our vocal behavior, which includes tone of voice, timbre, tempo and volume.

Fifty-five percent is a result of our nonverbal communication, i.e. our body posture, breathing, skin color and our movement.

So you can understand that “competent” persuaders spend most of their time concerned with what they say and very little about how they say it. By the way do you consider yourself competent? Do you know what they call the guy who graduated last in his class at medical school? Doctor!

Someone who is competent is someone who has the minimum requirements. Someone who is adequate. If you are going in for brain surgery do you want the guy who is competent but the last in his class or do you want to find the best that you can.

Maybe you would even want to have someone who is world class excellent?

When Alvin Donovan was around 9 years old, the principal from our school gave a lecture to his class. She said that some of you will discover that you are naturally good at some things while some of you will be better than other at other things. What you need to do is find out what you can be the best at and continually strive to become the best in the world at that one thing.

That is what Alvin Donovan has chosen to do. For Alvin Donovan to be competent at what he does her thinks of having only the minimum level of qualifications. The outcome Alvin Donovan has in mind for you is for you to become world class excellent at what you do. Because when you are the best in the world at what you do then obviously your service or product will be much easier to sell.

You will believe more in your product and that will be communicated through your demeanor, attitude and elegance with which you persuade others to realize that your is the best choice for them.

Clients prefer to deal with the best service or product. Have you ever heard of anyone asking who the worst x in the business is? Of course not.

So anyway, you can understand that competent persuaders probably spend their time focused on what they are saying, the content of the message.

How do “world class excellence” persuaders elegantly persuade others? They spend most of their time concerned with how they say their message.

Personal training tip
This is very important information that we can already immediately use. People who are already in rapport were studied using videocameras. It was discovered that these people were mirroring each others posture, inflection, breathing rate and so on. Notice yourself, go into a cafe, restaurant or bar. Observe a pair of lovers, a group of businessmen whatever. Soon you will notice that they are mirroring each others posture.

If one is sitting forward, so is the other. If one is sitting back so is the other one. This is an unconscious pattern that people in rapport use to understand and relate to each other. So what we are going to learn to do is to do the behaviors associated with rapport to cause the other person to have rapport with you:

1. Rapport on the physiological level – Mirror everything the other person is doing, the more deeply you mirror the more deeply you become in rapport. It should be like the other person is looking in the mirror.

Mirror completely:

Whole body- the persons stance or overall position.

Body parts- any consistent behavioral shrugs, gestures, head nods, or any other types of shifts in their behavior.

Breathing- depth and/or speed and/or displacement. (The most powerful form.)

Voice- tonality, tempo, volume, intensity and intonation patterns.

Because when you mirror the persons physiology, voice and speak at their rate of breathing your message becomes irresistible because it is like their own unconscious (their own inner voice) is speaking to them.

The rate at which you breath causes your mind to cycle at a certain rate. So your breathing rate is the “speed” at which your mind is “running”. When you are breathing at the same rate as the other person you will be on the same wave length. Remember, the first step of rapport is to meet them where they are. So when you breath at the same rate they are, your mind is running at the same rate as theirs.

You will discover that when you do this well, the other person will not want to end the phone conversation or meeting and will be hanging on your every word.
Also, people understand best what you are saying at the rate at which they speak.

If you talk fast you will more easily understand someone who speaks faster whereas if you talk slow you will more readily understand someone speaking slower.
Someone who speaks fast will be a bit bored with the pace of a slow talker. A slow talker will find someone who speaks fast difficult to understand.

The rate at which you speak is the rate at which you think and therefore the rate at which you best understand others.

The key to mirroring someone breath is to look at them and/or to listen to them. If you are looking at them, try looking at them from a head on angle or a 45 degree angle. Notice the rise and fall of their shoulders against the wall behind them. Watch their nostrils open as they inhale and close as they exhale. Also, presumable when someone is talking they are exhaling and when they stop they are inhaling.

The most powerful form of mirroring:

Breathing- depth and/or speed and/or displacement.

Personal training tip- Why mirror?

Because when you mirror the persons physiology, voice and speak at their rate of breathing your message becomes irresistible because it is like their own unconscious is speaking to them.

Also, people understand best what you are saying at the rate at which they speak.

Personal training tip-
a) How it easily and naturally works in daily practice:

Pace (mirror) everything with a three beat time lag to start, rapidly narrow the time lag to zero, then lead to see if in accord. So, the other person leans forward, you wait 3 beats and lean forward. Next you mirror the person and follow 2 beats to mirror. Narrow the time lag to 1 beat and next you are doing what they are doing as they are doing it.

Think about the normal business meeting. The people greet each other and normally make 60 second to 3 minutes of small talk to make rapport. Then one of the persons makes and indication the small talk is over, both parties shift physical posture and one person will begin the business part of the meeting.

So, you pace everything the other person does when you first meet and continue to do so through the first few minutes. Then will come a time for you to change the subject, move your posture and begin your presentation. See if they follow you.
If they follow you, then lead them to your outcome.

If not, simply go back and get them. Go back to pacing until you get them one way or another. In fact, the encounters you have can become elegant dances of pacing and leading throughout.

b) Pacing and leading:

Everyone seems to like the use of the words pacing and leading so we use them here. The definition of pacing is talking about or doing things that are verifiable and true in a persons ongoing sensory experience.

The definition of leading is: doing something other than the other person is doing.

Therefore, one of the many tests for rapport is: lead by doing something other than what the other person is doing and if they follow you then you have it.

If they don’t, go back to pacing.

Remember- You are already always either pacing or leading. You might think this is something new and strange to do on a daily business. This is something that all humans already unconsciously do with each other. You will find that now that you are conscious of this behavior you can use it to your advantage to more rapidly achieve your outcomes.

c) Strength instrument calibration: Sensory acuity

In order for you to become completely successful, you need to continually calibrate your sensory acuity so that you immediately tune yourself to the non-verbal signals that indicate a particular state or a change in the person’s state.

Begin immediately to truly always notice: Skin color change- lighter or darker, Skin muscle tone change- shiny or dull, Lower lip changes- expand (lines not visible) or contract (lines visible), Breathing changes- location, speed, shallow/deep.

The key is to take a mental picture or movie of these and continually compare that picture to what you see in front of you now from moment to moment.
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