Motivational Book on Success

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"My wife and I enjoyed your Make It, So You Don't Have to Fake It! We are on a motivational book of the month plan, your book is the best one. Keep up the great work."
—Mark Onsgard

I just finished your book Make It, So You Don't Have to Fake It! I enjoyed the book and will read it several more times to make sure I get everything I can from it; apply it, and then pass it on. I acquired it as part of my book of the month from my upline [Amway]. Thanks for your help in getting me free!
—Joyce M. Pfeifer

Hardcover - $17.50 - 1.62 lbs

Develop an "unfair advantage" over your competition.

All I've ever wanted in business is an unfair advantage. Before you raise your eyebrows, let me define the term. An unfair advantage is not lying, cheating, or stealing. It's exactly the opposite. An unfair advantage is doing everything just a little bit better than your competition. And even if you've been in business for many years and you're at the top of your profession, in today's competitive world, you also need to do everything just a little bit better today than you did it yesterday. That's your unfair advantage.

It's not always easy...

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Earn the right to do business with people.

One successful young man I interviewed at a financial planners' meeting told me, "I used to be in another industry. I went into financial planning when I was thirty-three years old, joining my father's small firm. He'd been in the business for years, but I had to go out and get my own customers."

So he drew up a list of twenty movers-and-shakers in his community, twenty affluent people with large spheres of influence who were eagerly pursued by everyone in the investment community. This young man had very little experience. He hadn't yet "earned their business."

He called on each of these people and said...

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Treat all your customers as if they are the only one in the world

My first boss treated every customer magnificently. It was a terrific lesson in customer service. They could be rich or humble, young or old, a resident of the hotel penthouse suite or a waitress in the hotel coffee shop. Each one got the same star treatment. Now that I have a greater understanding of business, I recognize how truly smart he was. I've learned that a waitress with fairly affluent customers can have a far greater sphere of influence than a society lady who only plays bridge or lunches with some friends a few times a week...

Are you overlooking customers in your backyard? When you want publicity and promotion, you've got to come up with a unique idea. It's nice to be able to say, "The Chamber of Commerce thinks we have an interesting business," but my friend Jonathan Stone came up with a more dynamic promotional idea for his enterprise. His claim was, "The bike messengers think we have the coolest office in San Francisco!" And he proved it by...

Do you have any "friends" who call you only when they want something? Are they your favorite people? Do you contact customers only when you're asking for their money? Or do you keep in touch for other reasons? Do salespeople call on you only when they want you to spend money? What if, instead, they called you with a lead, a referral, or an idea? Wouldn't that make you think you were more than just a customer? That they cared about you and your business...

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Ask what your customers want and expect before your competitors do.

Satisfy your customers...or someone else will. Your prospects and customers can give you important feedback, both directly and indirectly. After addressing a group of sales contest winners in Hawaii, I was on the shuttle bus headed for the airport. My usual custom is to ask questions, so I said to the driver, "I bet your passengers tell you what they really think about their stays at these fancy resorts because they know you don't work for any of them."

"Oh, yes," he replied...

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SECTION 2. Promote Yourself

It doesn't matter how good you are. The world has to know it.

My friend Alan Weiss says, "If you don't toot your own horn, there is no music." As you market yourself, your self-promotion must be ongoing, consistent, relentless, and sometimes shameless.

Shameless self-promotion is part of my nature, but most people resort to it only when they've hit a stone wall with a prospect and have nothing to lose. My friend Tom Carson turned a charming but shameless act into a long-term business relationship when he...

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It is not your customers' job to remember you.

It is not your customers' job to remember you. It's your job to make sure they don't have the opportunity to forget you.

Are you fabulous at what you do? If you think you're not getting the recognition you deserve, you have to take charge of making it happen.

There is no point going anywhere if people won't remember you were there. A key part of your self-advertising marketing strategy is to be noticed. Happily, this does not mean you have to arrive on a skateboard or be loud and boisterous...

My friend Marla recently inherited some money and decided to buy her first house. She quickly discovered that Realtors are like parking spots. When you don't need one, you run into them all the time, but once you want one, you're not sure where to start looking.

Now, imagine that Marla had gone to her aerobics class and suddenly noticed the person in front of her had a tee shirt with an advertising logo for a major Realtor. I'm not saying this gets them her business, but it is sure to start a conversation, and every conversation has the potential for starting a relationship. Every relationship has the potential for leading to business...

Every time you meet someone new, you have the perfect opportunity for an unforgettable infomercial. Yet most people make a pitiful job of it.

Have you ever asked someone what they did and had them give you some high-falutin' title so you were still in the dark? If you don't know what someone does, how could you ever decide if you want to do business with them? And why should you remember them?

To make the most of your Seven Super Seconds the next time you introduce yourself, develop an intriguing "tag line" to follow your name. For example...

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Learn to schmooze--or lose.

Schmoozing (connecting positively in a social situation) increases your "like factor," and your "like factor" can give you the edge over others who are more experienced. All other things being equal -- same price, same merchandise, same business opportunity -- the like factor will get you the business every time.

One morning I was dressed up to give a speech for the IRS. (They've gotten so much of my money that I wanted to get some of theirs.) Afterward, I walked into a downtown department store and encountered a champion saleswoman. She was perfectly appropriate and professional, but she really knew how to schmooze. Here's what she did...

You're invaluable in the marketplace when you build a reputation for doing the impossible. It makes you indispensable.

Before you insist that you can't do the impossible, let me explain. "Doing the impossible" simply means taking on jobs other people think they can't do and achieving positive results, using creativity and innovation. When others put limits on what can be expected of them, you stand out by achieving what they have refused to try.

My friend Judi Moreo is a good example. She had her own special events and convention business in Las Vegas. No request was impossible. One time, she...

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Travel with your own PR agent.
For that extra edge at networking events, here's a very inexpensive technique I'll bet you never heard before: Travel with your own public relations representative. In other words, go with a partner.

Enlist a coworker, friend, or relative to form a duo. My networking buddy in San Francisco is Susan RoAne, the best-selling author of How to Work a Room, Secrets of Savvy Networking, and What Do I Say Next? We attend many meetings together.

Here's what we do...

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To be really memorable, give something of value and ask nothing in return.

As preparation for a presentation, I interviewed a group of school photographers who were the most successful in their profession. Then, I encouraged everyone in the audience to seek out these people to study and learn from them.

One of the most successful men in the industry told me, "When I worked in a camera store, one of our suppliers really impressed me. He always tucked a little something extra in his shipments. It might have only been some Tootsie Rolls, but always something.

"I made up my mind that, when I went into business for myself, I would budget ten percent of the gross for promotions, and these promotions wouldn't be expensive ads or displays. Instead, I'd give small gifts to people." In the very beginning, he actually put ten cents of each incoming dollar in an old coffee can...

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First you impress. Then you convince.
If your marketing impresses your prospects and customers, is that good enough? No. It has to convince them too. Copywriting genius David Garfinkel constantly reminds me of this. The difference between impressing and convincing is the difference between awards and rewards. People can go "Oooh, aaah," and think something looks really wonderful, and that's like getting an award. But they haven't reached for their wallet to reward you with their business. You still have to convince them...

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It's better to do something for nothing than nothing for nothing.

My friend Jeanne Robertson asked a Las Vegas cab driver, "What's the best show in town?" He quickly replied, "Oh, Jay Leno! My wife and I just went to see him. He gives a special show for taxi drivers at two in the morning. Otherwise, we could never afford to go. Kenny Rogers does the same thing when he's in town."

You wouldn't think that anyone as big in the entertainment field as Jay Leno or Kenny Rogers needs to do something for nothing, but they do. Both realize that some of the best word of mouth advertising they could have would be taxi drivers raving about their shows.

This marketing strategy extends to freelancing too...

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Accept that you can't please all the people all the time.

No one can go through life never making an unpopular decision, but don't slam any doors unnecessarily. People who like you or, at the very least, respect you, are more likely to do business with you or recommend you for a new position. Roger Ailes, communication coach to Presidents Reagan and Bush, wrote, "The silver bullet in business and politics is the 'like factor.' All things being equal, we are more likely to vote for people we feel we like."

But sometimes, despite all our efforts, someone isn't going to like us. Accept it...

The "secret" of success is to love what you do for a living.

I've always loved what I do for a living the way some people love their hobbies and recreation. People who work smarter have found a passion that goes way beyond any paycheck. You may work hard eight hours a day, but you'll rarely achieve anything exceptional in that time. Most of my working life I've worked twelve hours a day minimum, six or seven days a week, but because I love what I do, I've never felt put-upon. That doesn't mean I've loved every aspect of what I do, but the total picture is irresistible.

Carole Kelby has this passion. She sold $13 million worth of homes averaging $100,000 each in a lean year...

SECTION 3. Get in Touch, Keep in Touch

Technology does not run an enterprise. Relationships do.

Staying in touch is as important as getting in touch. Many years ago, when top sales trainer Bill Gove was a sales manager for the 3M Company, he wrote his customers thank-you notes. One day a friend teased him, "Hey, Bill, all you do all day is write notes."

"No, just seven minutes a day," said Bill. "Everybody who does business with me hears from me at least once every three months, while my competition is calling on them, asking for their business."

Remember, there are two types of people to market to: those who know and love you and those who never heard of you. Most people spend a fortune trying to do business with people who have never heard of them, but the most important thing in sales is to stay in touch with the people who already know you...

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It's not who you know. It's how well you maintain your Rolodex.

Charles, my first boss in the United States, was a great guy, a good hairstylist, and a lousy businessperson. He left the city for two years. Then he came back and found he had to start over from scratch. He had never kept a customer list.

Today we can record our customers on a computerized contact-management database system, coding each name so we can select which mailings, specials, and offers to send to each category...

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The real sale comes after the sale.

A multi-millionaire customer from my hair salon days, Manny Lozano, gave me some advice. I don't know about you, but when a multi-millionaire gives me advice, I listen. Manny said, "I don't care if you can't squeeze another customer or stylist into your salon and if you've been booked solidly for five years, you still keep promoting. You have to convince your customers and keep convincing them that your salon is still the best place to come to." In other words, you keep selling after the sale.

I have followed his advice all these years and become an unabashed, relentless self-promoter of my business. To do this, I use high-tech, medium-tech, low-tech, and no-tech strategies.

High-tech: websites, e-mail, e-mail newsletters, free articles, and PR pieces distributed through computer "list servers."

Medium-tech: customer research, keeping in touch with customers through direct mail, an 800 phone number, radio and television interviews, writing regular columns and articles for various publications.

Low-tech: press kits, flyers, media presence (being quoted as an expert), leadership in professional associations, chairing charity events and fund raising drives, handwritten notes, an ad in the Yellow Pages, belonging to and attending meetings of business organizations.

No-tech: PR, conversations, networking, socializing, introducing yourself memorably, impressing others with your professional appearance, building word of mouth.

Here's an example of No-tech marketing with a high payoff...

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Bring your customers to you by putting on an event.

People do business with people they've met and that other people talk about. A good way to meet people and get talked about is to put on memorable events. Remember how Jay Leno and Kenny Rogers gave shows for taxi drivers? And how Jonathan Stone gave a Bike Messenger party for the other businesses in his building? My hair salon gave a popular annual Halloween party. Last year I delivered a speech wearing a custom-made Wonder Woman costume. All of these were memorable and much-talked-about events...

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People learn more when they're having fun.

Whenever you have a gathering to educate and motivate your customers or your salespeople, present or future, you'll win their hearts and minds faster if they have a really good time. Here are some ideas.

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The currency of human contact is stories.

People often resist a sales pitch, but they cannot resist a good story. For all the information we have to absorb in our lifetimes, it's the stories that stick with us longest and influence us the most.

If you want to make a sale, tell stories about people enjoying your product, service, or opportunity. In sales presentations, avoid saying, "I think you should buy my widget because it's the best in the world." Say, "Eleanor, I want to tell you a story. I met a woman at the Chamber of Commerce last month who told me..." Then describe her situation and how she changed it by using the widget. Conclude, "She called me last week and said, 'I'm so glad I met you at the Chamber of Commerce because your widget has changed my life.'"

The most effective technique when you're selling a product or service is to have a third-party endorsement...

What is the best of your best? And does your customer know about it?

My friend David Garfinkel offered a thought-provoking suggestion on a walk we took through San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. "What," he asked, "was your greatest recent success?"

I told him. "And what was the best of your best?" he asked. Again, I told him. Finally, David asked, "Do your customers and prospects know about this success and your ability to do this?"

What a simple, powerful marketing concept the "best of my best" is, and how easy to follow through on. Every so often, ask yourself:

What was my greatest recent success?

What was the best of my best?

Do my customers and prospects know about it?"

If not, how can I tell them...

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If you want to do business with the affluent, go where they are.

What I enjoyed most about being in the hairstyling business (apart from getting a free college education every day by asking questions) was getting to know people I'd otherwise never meet or socialize with. It taught me to be comfortable dealing with people from all social levels.

One of my former assistants expanded on this in an imaginative way. Becky and her friend Barbara were always going to the opening of the opera or charity events that cost $300 per person. "How," I asked incredulously, "can you afford to go to all these expensive events?"

"We volunteer!" she told me. "We register people, take their money, give them name tags, or whatever the organizers want. When we've finished our job, we stay for the fun." What a great way to make a valuable contribution to different cultural and charitable events while becoming familiar with the people you hope to do business with eventually...

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Use "Magic Words."

There are "10 Magic Words" that get attention and results in your marketing. David Garfinkel, in our tape program, Confessions of an Unashamed, Relentless Self-Promoter, says, "These are words that get people's attention, excite them, and keep them reading."

1. "Free" - Everyone on the planet, from you to Bill Gates, likes to get something for free. Sports Genesis is a company that sells sports memorabilia. To attract buyers from major retail chains to their trade show booth, David offered each prospect a free engraved sports clock with a case of semi-precious stone. The clocks were shaped like footballs, golf balls, etc., and David had researched each buyer's favorite sport ahead of time. The promotion got the company an $80,000 order from the nation's largest retailer.

2. The person's name...

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Expressing yourself with flair will increase the speed with which you succeed.

Peter Butler is an excellent example of how to increase your reputation and visibility by speaking. Peter sells insurance and financial services. When he passed his fiftieth birthday, he decided to start running in Iron Man triathlons and other athletic events around the country.

He now gives lively talks at service clubs about his experiences. Peter starts by saying, "Running a marathon is like planning for your future." Then he tells colorful stories about the different events he's participated in. Finally he says, "For my last few minutes, I'm going to tell you the four things you should know about planning for your long-term future."

Notice that his speech is not a sales presentation-yet it actually is. The audience starts out knowing all about his business credentials because the club official who introduces him has read them from an introduction that Peter provides. (This is standard procedure for all speakers.) Then Peter's introductory remark relates his business (preparing for the future financially) to his topic (preparing for a marathon). His final minutes are his philosophy. He is tremendously effective, and people stand in line afterwards to get his business card.

Visibility is necessary for success in almost any business...

Master technique in order to abandon it.

Unless you're talking to yourself in an empty room, everything you say is public speaking. Take advantage of every contact, from introducing yourself in social situations to addressing recruiting meetings and community organizations. Anyone who can speak clearly and eloquently impresses others as superior and stands head and shoulders above the competition.

Everyone has knowledge and experience to share. When you clam up with nerves, you are not sharing with others or contributing to the decision process...

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Good marketing ends by asking for a specific action.

Image is important, but it's not the whole picture. Your marketing should be an arrow, pointing to the next step you want your prospect to take.

"If you want your own marketing to make money," says David Garfinkel, "ask each marketing effort you make to do its very best to bring in some bucks for you. Every effort is like a mini-business, a salesperson in print, on tape, on video, or on the platform. We're talking about an entrepreneurial approach."

Marketing needs to move your buyer one step closer to buying. That means, you must ask your customer to take a specific action.

For example, Garfinkel has a client who recently started a specialized service for mail order, infomercial, and online businesses who need to process large volumes of credit cards. Banks just aren't set up for this and often refuse such accounts. So David helped the client design a one-sheet mailer headline, "Just when our sales are really taking off, the bank pulled the plug on our merchant account." A mail order merchant on the West Coast described his experience, something that could happen to any company in any location. Then there were four frequently asked questions, ending with "What's the next step?" The answer was, "Call Daniel G. Alcorn at 1-800 000-0000. He'll be glad to talk to you personally and direct you to the right specialist in the Summit Organization..."

SECTION 4 Make Things Happen

If the world were perfect, what would it look like?

Whatever you are about to do, ask yourself, "If the world were perfect, what would this particular thing look like or be like?" Of course, it can't be perfect, but too many times we compromise on a compromise, rather than compromising on perfection. Choose your actions, not for how they affect today, but for where they'll get you a year or five years from now. What decisions can you make that will get you closer to the place you want to be?

* The unsuccessful are looking for pleasing experiences. * The successful are looking for pleasing results...

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Don't limit yourself to a quota. Be limitless.
Jim Longman, a successful life insurance salesman I met at a Dale Carnegie class, discovered his selling ability at age eight. One winter in Shenandoah, Iowa, he arrived a bit late for his Cub Scout meeting. The leader of the den was explaining that the Scouts had to sell one hundred boxes of Christmas cards. The money would go to the church charity.

Not realizing that the hundred boxes was the goal for the whole Scout troop, the boy trudged through the snow, knocking on doors every day after school, showing samples of cards, and collecting money. At the next Scout meeting, he was heartbroken to report that he had sold only ninety-eight boxes of cards. The leader stood in total disbelief-until the boy emptied the money from his pockets onto the table.

Patty Lake told me about a woman on her staff at Shell Services International who...

"How many of you have had things go wrong in your business that seemed devastating at the time?" I asked an audience of Women Entrepreneurs in San Francisco. Everyone raised a hand. Some people put up two hands.

Like people I've met, I have had a wonderful business, great employees, and many successes. I have also been disappointed, had hard-earned funds embezzled, and had people quit at the most inopportune moments. I managed to live through every single experience and grow from it.

It's relatively easy to look back at business disappointments and realize that they were just part of a regular up and down cycle. When you survive a few such cycles, you become a lot more valuable to your customers. Personal disasters are also part of the inevitable cycle called life. That's why the more we experience, the more philosophical we become about events, both business and personal, that would have been shattering when we were younger.

Adversity in business can be a springboard for creative thinking and new growth...

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Resist emotional blackmail.

A woman at a direct sales company I spoke to asked what she should do when she's going to work and her two-year-old says, "Mommy, I hate you because you're leaving." I turned to the audience for answers. One woman stood up and said, "You are allowing yourself to be emotionally blackmailed." Another woman said, "I get the same thing, and I smile and hug her and say, 'I'm going to miss you too, honey. I'll be back as soon as I can.' It's up to you whether you interpret your child's fears as blackmail or not."

Blackmail is a contract between two people. It only works when both agree to play. We should not accept emotional blackmail from others, just as we should not try to blackmail them. Often society provides women with only a vague line between good manners and being taken advantage of, between being a caring, nurturing person and being a victim. It's up to the woman to make the line clear and strong, both for herself and for others...

Clean out the closets of your life.

People who succeed in sales have more resilience than almost anyone else on earth, even mountain climbers, astronauts, and salespeople. You can't top salespeople for endurance!

To keep yourself at maximum fitness, surround yourself with people who encourage you. Discard anyone who keeps telling you all the reasons you are going to fail.

Go over the closets of your life with the same vigilance you clean your actual closets...

Good habits lead to sales success. Think big. Start small. Our habits are part of us, built up like the layers of a pearl from our own juices. They can either provide a lustrous shield against adversity -- or a prison of our own making. What new habits do you want to acquire? What old habits do you want to change?

Do you have an "interest in" or a "commitment to" achieving your goals and developing good work habits?

You have a choice...

In business, your time is as valuable as your contacts. Have you ever said "yes" when you really wanted to say "no"? Nothing eats up your time faster. It may have seemed the most efficient or popular or expedient thing to do at the moment, but you regretted it afterward.

First of all, realize you don't need to make any excuses for refusing a business proposal or social invitation. "No, thank you for asking, but I already have plans." What you don't have to explain is that your plans are with yourself. You don't have to make excuses about what you are doing. Often we think we should explain our reasons for our behavior to others as if we are responsible to them for our actions.

And fortunately there's a way to say "no" and "yes" at the same time: Refuse the request, but offer an alternative that works better for you and benefits the petitioner as well...

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Save fifteen minutes a day, and you'll gain two extra weeks a year.

How do you find the time to achieve everything you want to achieve? Suppose you were suddenly given the gift of two extra weeks each year to do anything you wanted. How would you spend this time? What would you want to accomplish? Would you increase your efforts on an existing project? Start something new? Or even use it as restorative personal time?

This gift is not a fantasy. Eliminating just fifteen wasted minutes each day adds up to ninety-one extra hours a year, more than two full work weeks. Here are six simple ways to achieve this "miracle."

1. Separate efficiency and effectiveness. Don't confuse activity with accomplishment. Management expert Peter Drucker defines them like this:

* Efficiency is doing things right.
* Effectiveness is doing the right things.

There is no point doing well what you shouldn't be doing at all...

Learn to be smarter today than you were yesterday.

Someday I'm going to write my own version of Robert Fulghum's bestseller, All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten. Only mine will share the simple lessons I learned standing behind a hairstyling chair, lessons that can apply to any business.

For example, my first job at age fifteen was in a glamorous hair salon in England. As soon as I'd get to know my rich women customers, I'd always ask them specific questions: "What were you doing when you were my age?" "How did you make your money? Did you make it yourself or did you marry it?"-"If you made it yourself, how did you do it?"-"If you married it, where did you meet him?" All this was good "market research."

Later, I was one of the first women to go into men's hairstyling. My customers were executives from the San Francisco business community, men who wanted to look distinctive, who socialized in the boardroom, and who had no time for browsing through back issues of Field and Stream. Sometimes we would do someone's hair and see them in the Wall Street Journal the next week. It was a fabulous learning opportunity for me, and my questions now centered on the business world: "What makes you the best salesperson in your company?" "What's the biggest challenge in your business?" "How did you turn your little company into a million dollar enterprise?" Their answers made me smarter about a wide variety of industries...

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If you can change your thinking just a few degrees, you'll see a whole new world.

It's easy to get discouraged. The next time you do, remember this story. One Sunday morning, I was running in the Marina District of San Francisco with a psychiatrist friend of mine, David Leof. We jogged along the bay from the Marina Green to the Golden Gate Bridge and back again.

Afterward, we were walking to cool down. The sky was clear and full of seagulls, the water was blue and full of boats, and the bridge arched over the entrance to the harbor. As we turned back toward our car, the picture changed completely, now a vista of greenery, kites, joggers stretching, and rows of neat Spanish-style houses.

David said, "You see what we've just done, Patricia? We have just turned around a few degrees, and it's like we're looking at two totally different pictures. The good thing about my practice is that people only have to change their thinking a few degrees to have totally different lives."

We've all heard people say, "Well, it's not working where I am. I think I'm going to move to another state, go into a different line of business, lose fifty pounds, or bleach my hair blonde, and then my life will work." When it comes to good mental health, sometimes what we really need to do is realize what we already have to be grateful for. Just change your thinking a few degrees. The next time you feel stale or frustrated, look at where you are and what you have from a slightly different angle...

Make It, So You Don't Have to Fake It!...a practical and motivational book on personal and business success by Patricia Fripp

Make It, So You Don't Have to Fake It!...a practical and motivational book on personal and business success
by Patricia Fripp