Matthew Linklater, Sales Trainer, Personal Coach and Business Mentor Expert, Publishes a New Article Divulging the True Path to Positioning Your Business for Success.

Matthew Linklater, author of Quick Witted: Saying the Right Thing to Win Big and trainer in the areas of business and personal success, writes about the importance of differentiation for transforming sales success in today’s challenging market.

Chicago, IL – November 11, 2010- Matthew Linklater, certified practitioner and coach of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, expert in Time Line Therapy^TM, hypnotist, speaker and author, recently published an article on his website (www.thelinklater.com) about a scientific study’s published findings on the elements of producing lucky outcomes in our lives. The article, titled “Position Your Product for Success: The Difference That Makes a Difference,” discusses how professionals must evaluate their company’s quantitative and qualitative qualities that set you apart from your competition.

Linklater writes, “Does your company have that special something that makes you stand out against the crowd of your competitors? Or, rather, are you sinking in the sea of sameness with a weak message and no value proposition to set yourself apart? Differentiation is everything in today’s competitive marketplace… You too can have great business success, but first, you must define your Difference that Makes a Difference and change what you are doing to shift your results.”

“Each of us – personally and professionally – leaves a small footprint in our environment with the life that we live. Think about the carbon footprint on the world that a fruit or vegetable leaves behind as it moves from the farm fields through the harvesting process to your dining room table. The impact that its life leaves on our Earth is small but measurable. What kind of footprint are you leaving behind in your business practices? One that makes a difference, or one that doesn’t? One that consumers find meaningful and cannot resist buying in to, or one that they will easily pass up?,” argues Linklater.

Matthew Linklater and Denise Wayman are co-founders of TheLinklater.com and former Vice Presidents of three fortune 100 companies and are accomplished motivational speakers and life-changers.  Authors of three books, Quick Witted: Saying The Right Thing to Win Big, Basic Training: Sales Boot Camp, and Counter Attack with legendary Brian Tracy, these two Sales Gurus combine extensive business experience with their expertise as certified master practitioners, trainers and coaches of Neuro-Linguistic Programming in conjunction with Time Line Therapy^TM to help you exceed your sales goals!

The entire article can be found at http://thelinklater.com/2010/11/position-your-product-for-success-the-difference-that-makes-a-difference/

About Matthew Linklater and Denise Wayman:

Matthew Linklater, and his business partner and fiancée, Denise Wayman, help clients with personal development, positive thinking and action orientation – teaching others to effectively identify and grab hold of their dreams. In addition to their specializations in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and Time Line Therapy^TM, this high-impact duo utilizes their expertise in hypnosis for their clientele’s personal and professional development and training. The dynamic success mentoring team works with individual clients on their career goals as well as business teams on sales and performance goals, to manifest extraordinary success for top-line growth and bottom-line profits. Together, Matthew and Denise have a revolutionary Live Your Vision process that aligns mind, body and spirit in the right direction for success.

As Authors, Speakers and Success Coaches, Matthew Linklater and Denise Wayman offer powerful business consulting and high-impact personal coaching. They have trained business leaders to increase in the critical areas of sales coaching, building instant rapport with others, 3D Communication for negotiation and conflict resolution, motivation of team members, goal achievement, product scripting and leadership. This team’s personal coaching methods incorporate powerful NLP techniques, Time Line Therapy®, the Live Your Vision experience and the Ericksonian Hypnosis method.

To learn more about Matthew Linklater, please visit www.thelinklater.com.

Matthew Linklater, Sales Trainer, Personal Coach and Business Mentor Expert, Publishes a New Blog Unpacking the Importance of Being Inquisitive in the Sales Process.

Matthew Linklater, author of Quick Witted: Saying the Right Thing to Win Big and trainer in the areas of business and personal success, writes about the first stages of the sales process and the steps toward gathering important information from clients to get the sale that you want.

Chicago, IL – November 8, 2010- Matthew Linklater, certified practitioner and coach of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, expert in Time Line Therapy^TM, hypnotist, speaker and author, recently published a blog on his website (www.thelinklater.com) comparing the business sales process to the beginning stages of dating to explain the importance of a discovery process. The blog, titled “Correct Questions: Launch Your Sales Pitch With a Savvy Start,” discusses how sales professionals must engage clients in a critical phase of questioning before launching into a pre-packaged sales pitch .

Linklater writes, “Think about the pursuit of love. You glance across a room, and there she (or he) is. You have your eyes on the prize and you know what you want. It’s the same in business – you have a goal in mind… a desire that burns so strongly that you would go to great lengths to close the “deal” and take your reward. It might be that generously sized corporate client, a talented new hire that would be a great fit for your team, or a project that you are bidding against three competitors. The sales process begins, and the last thing you want to do is blow the deal.”

“Becoming skilled in asking the right questions with the appropriate timing can set you apart from others in this tough economy. Learn to master the art of asking questions, and you’ll increase your sales success exponentially by demonstrating that you are considering the client’s needs first.,” argues Linklater.

Matthew Linklater and Denise Wayman are co-founders of TheLinklater.com and former Vice Presidents of three fortune 100 companies and are accomplished motivational speakers and life-changers.  Authors of three books, Quick Witted: Saying The Right Thing to Win Big, Basic Training: Sales Boot Camp, and Counter Attack with legendary Brian Tracy, these two Sales Gurus combine extensive business experience with their expertise as certified master practitioners, trainers and coaches of Neuro-Linguistic Programming in conjunction with Time Line Therapy^TM to help you exceed your sales goals!

The entire blog can be found at http://thelinklater.com/2010/11/correct-questions-launch-your-sales-pitch-with-a-savvy-start/

About Matthew Linklater and Denise Wayman:

Matthew Linklater, and his business partner and fiancée, Denise Wayman, help clients with personal development, positive thinking and action orientation – teaching others to effectively identify and grab hold of their dreams. In addition to their specializations in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and Time Line Therapy^TM, this high-impact duo utilizes their expertise in hypnosis for their clientele’s personal and professional development and training. The dynamic success mentoring team works with individual clients on their career goals as well as business teams on sales and performance goals, to manifest extraordinary success for top-line growth and bottom-line profits. Together, Matthew and Denise have a revolutionary Live Your Vision process that aligns mind, body and spirit in the right direction for success.

As Authors, Speakers and Success Coaches, Matthew Linklater and Denise Wayman offer powerful business consulting and high-impact personal coaching. They have trained business leaders to increase in the critical areas of sales coaching, building instant rapport with others, 3D Communication for negotiation and conflict resolution, motivation of team members, goal achievement, product scripting and leadership. This team’s personal coaching methods incorporate powerful NLP techniques, Time Line Therapy®, the Live Your Vision experience and the Ericksonian Hypnosis method.

To learn more about Matthew Linklater, please visit www.thelinklater.com.

Correct Questions: Launch Your Sales Pitch With a Savvy Start

The sales process is all around us, in many places outside of the business conference room. In fact, sales happen on street corners, on golf courses, over the phone and even across a dinner table. That’s right – selling is a part of both our personal lives as well as our professional lives. Recently, a marketing and sales expert and contributing writer for Forbes Magazine confessed in an article that he learned a large portion of successful sales from a crushing dating experience. That’s right, romance can teach us something about selling!

Think about the pursuit of love. You glance across a room, and there she (or he) is. You have your eyes on the prize and you know what you want. It’s the same in business – you have a goal in mind… a desire that burns so strongly that you would go to great lengths to close the “deal” and take your reward. It might be that generously sized corporate client, a talented new hire that would be a great fit for your team, or a project that you are bidding against three competitors. The sales process begins, and the last thing you want to do is blow the deal. Just like the marketing director in Forbes learned the hard way, you know that you can’t just walk across the room to that beautiful lady, interrupt her conversation with the group she’s talking to, and invite her right there to the symphony tomorrow night. No, no, no! You need to have the right approach, including the appropriate questions.

With a sales “courtship,” you have to keep the client’s interests in mind, and be willing to maintain flexibility based on their wants and needs. To begin the process towards closing the deal, you need to gather information from your customer, and beginning by asking quality questions. It’s a discovery process. Asking the right questions builds trust and shows client-focused thinking.

When selling you have to be artfully skilled at asking questions to strategically uncover clients hot buttons and leverage points. You need the client to tell you what the pain points are even if you believe you know the buttons or points. Until you can skillfully do that you will have a tough time closing the deal!

While these ideas do not encompass all the possibilities, they begin to portray a picture of the growing understanding between a sales representative and his/her client that reflects a budding relationship leading towards a sale. Becoming skilled in asking the right questions with the appropriate timing can set you apart from others in this tough economy. Learn to master the art of asking questions, and you’ll increase your sales success exponentially by demonstrating that you are considering the client’s needs first. Contact us today to gain an even more acute understanding with personalized sales success coaching!

Position Your Product for Success: The Difference That Makes a Difference

Does your company have that special something that makes you stand out against the crowd of your competitors? Or, rather, are you sinking in the sea of sameness with a weak message and no value proposition to set yourself apart? Differentiation is everything in today’s competitive marketplace. Think about it… without differentiation, Disney wouldn’t be swimming in success from positioning its company as the “Happiest Place on Earth” in the eyes of families across the United States. The company’s creation of whimsical, imagination-invoking environments and rides, combined with its superior customer service promise and attention to the guest experience, has brought its multiple theme parks many years of tourist traffic.

You too can have great business success, but first, you must define your Difference that Makes a Difference and change what you are doing to shift your results.

Consider for a moment the unique selling proposition of your company – emphasis here is on the word, “unique.” Does your business have a special quality, stand-up process, better price, superior talent, or premium product that makes choosing your company stand apart from others the most logical and beneficial decision? Your Difference that Makes a Difference during these challenging economic times might be your competitive pricing, efficient scheduling process, skilled sales staff, or superior product script and interaction with clients. But quantitative accomplishment isn’t everything… qualitative success matters too!

High levels of volume and productivity do not necessarily win the client without your critical qualitative personal contribution to your company. For example, it’s excellent if your product is competitively priced, and your sales staff training and performance is efficient. However, if your competitor matches you in these quantitative areas, but they might also promote their eco-friendly production process, guess who is likely to win the business? Chipotle might be similarly priced to Moe’s Southwest Grill, for example, and they may even have an equally tasty burrito lunch product. But Chipotle promotes its predominant use of open-range, antibiotic free chicken and pork to today’s growing pro-organic and anti-animal-abuse population. Way to appeal to the consumer’s senses – both taste buds as well as animal rights ethics!

Without qualitative differentiation (that makes a difference), Geico Auto Insurance would not be considered “so easy that a caveman could do it.” The play on neanderthal intelligence levels, and the cavemen’s protest of their IQ categorization transforms Geico’s otherwise mundane insurance product into a humorous and memorable message or differentiation: clients can enjoy an insurance product and service that will not make their head spin.

Each of us – personally and professionally – leaves a small footprint in our environment with the life that we live. Think about the carbon footprint on the world that a fruit or vegetable leaves behind as it moves from the farm fields through the harvesting process to your dining room table. The impact that its life leaves on our Earth is small but measurable. What kind of footprint are you leaving behind in your business practices? One that makes a difference, or one that doesn’t? One that consumers find meaningful and cannot resist buying in to, or one that they will easily pass up?

In addition to getting a grasp on your company’s quantitative and qualitative values that set you apart from your competition, I challenge you to brainstorm even further and consider your individual points of differentiation! What footprint are you leaving behind in your personal and professional life? How are you memorable? What quantitative difference do you bring to selling, negotiating, instructing and communicating? What, then, makes you qualitatively valuable? Is it your ability to collaborate well with others, your skills in relationship building, your interest in making others comfortable or maybe your passion for impacting others positively?

We encourage you to shoot for a high quantitative advantage over your competition, but true results will come to those who differentiate themselves on the qualitative values as well. Leverage your company’s Difference That Makes a Difference by changing what you’re doing – quantitatively and qualitatively – to change your results.

In today’s highly competitive economic conditions, we know that you can succeed. And the Linklater Co. can help you do that.

Three to four years ago, when business was booming, sales were easy to capture with the best priced product, better systems and smoother processes. Now, your customers have the advantage of choice and discrimination in their purchasing experiences. You need take the right steps for getting your message heard among the sea of sameness in your industry and among your competitors. The Linklater Company offers sales training, personal coaching and business consulting that can help you and your sales staff to differentiate your business and drive better success, leaving memorable footprints anywhere you go. Give us a call today to get started with your business and sales training!