The age of doing business by accident is over. Clients and customers have so many choices today that you can’t expect to just show up, throw your briefcase on the table, and grab an order.

Now, is this a doom-and-gloom scenario, stating that there’s no more opportunity out there? Of course not. In fact, there’s more opportunity out there today than ever before. I really believe that no matter how successful you are right now, you have an opportunity to be more successful than you’ve ever been before.

There’s just one catch: In today’s competitive world there is no more margin for error.The companies and the people that will succeed today, tomorrow, and on into the future are the ones who will be willing to do everything RIGHT.

I know that as a client, customer, or consumer I can buy almost anything I want from the Internet and I never have to talk to you! So the question now becomes, what is it that you are willing to do for all your clients, customers, and prospects that creates so much extra value that it is more beneficial for them to buy directly from you than to just click on their computers?

Need help selling value? Click here for my online audio program Supercharged Selling, which will give you everything you need to turn customers into clients for life.

In other words, how are you differentiating yourself from the competition?

I think the single biggest question I have for you is this: What are you really selling?

Are you just selling whatever will get you the fastest commission, or are you selling extraordinary quality, service, convenience, and value? Are you just selling the first thing out of your bag, just to get your boss off your back, or are you selling “Save me time and make my life easier”? Are you just selling whatever the customer thinks they want and need, or are you selling knowledge, expertise, information, and education?

Are you just selling stuff? Are you just selling what everyone else is selling? Because if you are, I can click on my computer and I can buy stuff from the cheapest guy in town.

Get out there and sell some value.

I guarantee there is not a single client, customer, or prospect who wants to be an expert on what it is that you do. That’s what we have you for: to be our expert, adviser, and resource.

Your clients do not have the time nor the inclination to be an expert on what it is that you do. Heck, most clients don’t have the time to keep up with all the information they need to be experts in their own field, let alone yours. That’s why your ability to supply your clients with knowledge, expertise, information, and education is critical to not only your success, but theirs, too.

THE FOURTEENTH ROCK-SOLID RULE FOR ACHIEVING SALES SUCCESS

Successful salespeople act as experts, advisers, and resources to their clients, always ready to provide them with knowledge, expertise, information, and education.

As an expert, adviser, and resource, your job goes way beyond supplying your clients with great products and great service.Your job is also to provide the client with the knowledge, expertise, information, and education they need to be more successful in their career or business.

If you can do that on a consistent basis, you will have differentiated yourself from the competition, created so much extra value that your price almost becomes immaterial, and reached the zenith of success in sales:You will have made yourself indispensable to the client.

THE FIFTEENTH ROCK-SOLID RULE FOR ACHIEVING SALES SUCCESS

Successful salespeople are indispensable to their clients.

For example, I’ve done a lot of work with salespeople in the cable TV advertising business. Many of their clients are local small businesses.

These are the kind of businesses that don’t have an ad agency representing them and are not big enough to have their own advertising or marketing department. The most successful cable TV advertising salespeople I’ve met don’t just sell ads to these businesses; they lend their knowledge and expertise to these clients while acting as the client’s advertising and marketing consultant.

These successful salespeople first find out everything they can about their client’s business. Then, rather than just selling them an ad or series of ads, they help the client formulate an advertising and marketing plan designed to help them get the biggest bang for their ad dollar and, consequently, increase the client’s business.

By the way, if you haven’t figured it out yet, when you increase a client’s business it not only makes you indispensable, but it gives the client the wherewithal to buy even more from you. Talk about a win-win.

This is a free excerpt from Chapter 12 of The Best Damn Sales Book Ever.

As a professional speaker, I have a huge edge on many of my clients: I don’t speak in only one industry. I speak in a wide variety of industries to a wide variety of companies. One of the many things I enjoy about what I do is that I get to learn about all these different industries and companies. I also get to see what goes on in these industries and their marketplaces. Let me tell you what I see going on in almost every single industry and marketplace that I have walked into in the last 5 to 10 years.

The middle is dead! The middle is gone!

If you want to be successful in today’s business world and economy, you have to be one of two things: the cheapest or the best.

The days are long gone when you could sell a pretty good product or pretty good service at a pretty good price, because I can get “pretty good” at a dirt cheap price. Or I can get “fantastic” at just a little more expensive price, because pretty good just isn’t good enough anymore.

Make sure to check out my top selling online audio program Supercharged Sellling for nearly six hours of hard-hitting sales motivation guaranteed to keep you going in down times.

Look around you, go to any shopping mall. Look at the stores that do business and look at the stores that do not. On the one hand, you have your deep discounters, such as Wal-Mart,Target, and Kohl’s. But even down at this end, where price is supposedly the deciding factor, how do you explain what happened to Kmart? Similar merchandise, similar prices, but not nearly the same results as Wal-Mart, Target, or Kohl’s.

Walk into a Wal-Mart,Target, or Kohl’s and you’ll find them well lit (you could use a pair of sunglasses in Wal-Mart) and well stocked. I don’t know about you, but I’ve walked into quite a few Kmarts that were poorly lit, and let me tell you something about poor lighting. When a store is poorly lit it looks dingy.When it looks dingy, it can look dirty, even if it’s clean.

Another thing I noticed in Kmart are what’s known as “holes in the shelves.” This is a retailing term signifying they’re out of that item, causing a big empty space on the shelf (hence the term).Now I don’t know about you, but for me the biggest reason to go to a large discounter like Wal-Mart is that I don’t have to worry they won’t have what I’m looking for, since they seem to have everything. With time becoming such a precious commodity in people’s lives, do you really think people want to shop somewhere that won’t have what they’re looking for and they’ll have to go somewhere else? So even down at the price end there’s a value component.

Let’s look at the other side of the coin from the cheapest—let’s go to the best.These are retail stores like Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Lord & Taylor, along with specialty operations like Banana Republic and Abercrombie and Fitch.

Then right in the middle you have those mid-range, midprice department stores. You remember those places.Your mother used to drag you there as a kid. Thirty years ago every major city in America had at least three or four of them, and now maybe one or two are left. They either went out of business, merged, or were taken over.

What made the department stores great in their heyday was personal service. Once the discounters started to flex their muscles by cutting price, the department stores started to do the same.The problem was, in order to cut their price, they had to cut somewhere else, and where do you think that was? That’s right, they got rid of the people who provided personal service.

The customers responded predictably. They figured as long as they were going to get abused, they might as well go to a discounter and pay less for the privilege.

SALES TIP

You don’t compete on what your competition does best and you don’t. You compete on what you do best and they don’t.

So here it is: You have to be the cheapest or the best. The question is, where do you want to be? Well, if you want my advice, I’ll tell you where you never want to be. You never want to be the cheapest. You never want to be known as the “price company” or the “price salesperson.”

THE TWELFTH ROCK-SOLID RULE FOR ACHIEVING SALES SUCCESS

Successful salespeople consistently create and sell value, rather than get stuck selling price.

Whether it's parenting, mentoring, coaching, being a friend, working with colleagues, managing employees, or running a business, many times not a moment passes where we aren't being asked for help or advice.

It may be advice concerning a course of action or an actual favor for a relative or friend, but in whatever form it happens there is a very simple rule for making it work.

Help someone insofar as their commitment to themselves is greater than your commitment to them. The second your commitment to that person becomes greater than that person's commitment to him or herself, you are waging a losing battle.

We've all been there: You spend your time and energy helping someone who asked for your help; they let you do most, if not all the heavy lifting; then flake out on you.

So, how do you figure out if someone's commitment to themselves is greater than your commitment to them? Give them a list of tasks that you know will get them moving forward. Once they complete those tasks, give them all the help they want.  They've proven themselves by taking action. The majority of people simply won't take action.

Let me hear from you on this topic. Personal or professional experiences helping others, and the triumphs and tribulations that resulted.  Those of you who read my articles know that I'm very candid and personal about many of my experiences, whether they be in life or business. So let me get you started by giving you an example of something that happened between my daughter, Emily, and myself.

Emily, who is just finishing up her junior year of high school, told me she was very interested in checking out East Carolina University.  I asked her if she wanted to take a tour of the school, and, if so, I would set it up.  She thought it was a great idea, so I called ECU and scheduled a tour during Emily's spring break.  Since ECU is a two hour drive from where we live, it meant I had to set aside a day for this tour.

Two days before the tour, Emily tells me her friend has invited her to join them at the beach for a couple of days and she didn't want to go on the tour because, "She's entitled to have fun too."  If you have a teenager you can hear that whiny tone of voice in your head.  I said, "Fine.  But from now on don't waste my time.  If you're interested in checking out a school, either do it yourself or find someone to help you, because I'm done.  Oh, and by the way, YOU call ECU and tell them you won't be showing up, although I don't think you should tell them that you thought spending two days at the beach with your friend was more important than finding the right college.  It wouldn't look real good on an application."  Top that one folks.

I’m thrilled to announce that I have been asked to co-author Giants Talk Fan Blog on the online edition of the San Jose Mercury News. Wylie Wong, the original author of the blog, was so impressed with the comments I’d been posting, he asked me to join him and of course I said, “Yes!” What else would any card carrying life-long Giants lunatic say?