DON'T ever give your prospective client feeling of "This person is just here to sell me something" or conveying even smallest inkling that portrays "Selling".

DO always "help" your client arrive at fact that your are here to provide a service or product that they want and need. You are not there to sell; you are there to help.

DON'T go into "Salesperson Overdrive". There are many of you out there, including myself, that must fight urge to SELL or to Dominate prospect. Whether you know it or not, you are setting yourself (and prospect) up for that final decision, "Yes Or No, What Will It Be"? You end up in situation which most of us despise, "The Sell".

Your entire Business Persona should be a Soft Persuasion. This means that you never try to make your prospect see things your way, It's quite opposite actually. Soft Persuasion is in Packaging. It's way you package your company, yourself and your product or service. I don't mean box it comes in. When I speak of packaging, I mean way you portray your company and yourself. It should be a positive and confident portrayal, not an overbearing one.

Hard Persuasion too often comes back to bite you in ass. Hard Persuasion separates you from your prospect, moving them away from you. Nobody likes to be bullied, and that's what Hard Persuasion or Hard Sell comes down to. No matter how nicely you do it, you are bullying them into seeing things your way. This is not to say that there are not some of you who can make this work, but for most of us Hard Sell Close is a feat that is beyond our capabilities. This is because we are business professionals and technical experts, not seasoned sales people.

Approach your prospect as if they are already a client. Assume this because they truly need your service, not because you want to make sale. How you see and treat your prospective client is how they will see themselves. Perception is a strong tool to be used wisely.

Well, for me, answer was very simple. Just apply golden rule of networking: treat other people way you would want to be treated and watch them beat a path to your door, AND stay there, too! Treat them as if they're invisible, take them for granted, ignore PERSON behind salesPERSON and watch them run like an Olympic Gold Medalist. Since a lot of subscribers to Networking Gazette are business owners or sales managers (or coaches to business owners and sales managers), I thought I'd share some of suggestions I gave franchise owner. I've edited content a bit to try to make information apply to any field of work. I started off by asking her:

How involved are you in your industry? Are you active in your local chapters of your professional associations? Are there opportunities for you to speak in front of these groups, serve on committees, write articles, teach a professional development course? Do a first rate job volunteering for these organizations, and you will get you a lot of attention and respect from people you're seeking:top producers. Quality begets quality.

Regarding retaining employees, you can not only keep employees, but you can turn them into your greatest recruiters if you treat them like your most important customers! In a way that's exactly what they are because they are generating an income for you, same as a customer does. When customers are happy, they tell their friends. When employees are happy, they tell their colleagues.

Some simple suggestions for keeping your sales people happy and creating your own in-house cheering section: