Handling Rejection - Who Care's?

Have you ever seen an ugly guy with a really attractive girl? Or vise versa? How about an average person with average intelligence who is really successful? Happens quite frequently right? Why is that? Is it luck? Divine intervention? One thing I would certainly bet on as being a characteristic in these kinds of people is the ability to be de-sensitized or un-fazed by rejection.

In my new ebook I talk a lot about how to develop beliefs that empower you, and eliminate the ones that anchor and hold you back. The biggest reason I insist on developing self chosen empowering beliefs is because, that is how you will be able to handle the rejection that is part of the growth & development process. At an early stage in my life i developed the belief that every "No" brought me closer to a "Yes."

A common scene in most all business environments involves a new sales rep. A brand new hire pounding away at the phone after his happy little 3-day training. The new hire is excited about all the commission to be made, all the things they'll be able to buy, and all the promises made by the company. Fast forward a month later and 1000 "No's" later and you'll see a less enthusiastic and more doubtful employee.

What changed? The new-hire had not consciously developed deep belief in their ability and product. When this doesn't happen then the mind has no choice but to accept the events that happen in my life (the results) as the ultimate judgment as to his/her ability or capacity. Obviously after getting all that rejection all the evidence points to incompetence and failure.

This scenario serves as an important example as to why beliefs are so important to actively choose & nurture. Also, it shows the need to be able to handle rejection. A good friend and extremely successful colleague of mine Yauvan Kumar, handles objection by mentally thinking "who cares?" Basically saying it doesn't matter, or pay no mind to it. Something that simple keeps him supremely confident and able to pick up the phone and call a client with absolute confidence in who he as and what he does.

Another little mantra is the SWSWSW. This stands for "some will, some won't, so what?" Again, simple yet brilliant. Some people do this unconsciously, they're oblivious to feeling less competent when slapped in the face with a no. This type of thinking is what keeps average or ugly guys courting the pretty ladies. Or the semi-educated person persisting to get his way in the face of rejection and endless "no's."

It's been said over and over; perseverance is worth more than talent. However, bring both to the table and your odds of winning multiply dramatically. Next time you get a no, or are thinking that you'll get a no; just say "who cares?"

- Angel Armendariz

7 Answers To a Highly Effective Question

"What is the one activity that you know if you did superbly well and consistently would have significant positive results in your personal, professional, or work life?"

7 Common Answers:
- Improving communication with people
- Better preparation
- Better planning and organizing
- Taking better care of self
- Seizing new opportunities
- Personal development
- Empowerment

That is a question Stephen R. Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People asks at his seminars. What a powerful question. The usual responses are fascinating; how many of you would answer in a similar manner?

If you think about the most valuable resource you can have; it would almost certainly be "improved communication with people" (sales ability). Want improved relationships? How about more friends? I know, we all want more money. Some parents might want a resource to help with their kids. There are also some of us who are depressed. Some of us lack motivation. A group of us just doesn't believe in ourselves....Do any of these sound like you?

If so, then you must agree that improved communication would be the one ability you would like to do superbly well and consistently, to have a significant positive impact in your life. With all the power promised by communication...you would think that we would all be flocking to resources via books, training, coaching, etc.
Do you?

It amazes me that with all the value in communication we are so atrophied in that arena. A colleague of mine once commented, "Angel serenades his clients over the phone with his voice..." I took this as a complement, however; I couldn't say the same thing for him. Truth be told, I have worked on my voice...and I still do. If how well I live my life has to do with how I communicate with people then I'll definitely work the probabilities in my favor and work on all channels of communication consistently.

Now here's something few people ever think about. You communicate with yourself all day long. You talk to yourself, you convince yourself, you insult, provoke, congratulate, sell,... You are both the buyer and the seller. You try to sell yourself on working out, or the new diet, or taking care of important things. How good are you at selling yourself? Unfortunately, I've met few individuals who are aware, much less competent, at being able to make themselves do the things that they "know" they should do. Why is that? Again, because we have not consistently worked on our communication and selling skills. We don't know how to sell ourselves on anything...thus we are sold anything being peddled in our environment.
As you can see...I'm passionate about communication and its effect on every aspect of our lives.

-Angel Armendariz

A Stroke of Altruism 2.0

Boston Globe columnist, and Author, Penelope Trunk posted a great blog yesterday on her Brazen Careerist Blog site(see sidebar). It had to do with altruism (giving) and its role in modern education

Penelope sites several sources that acknowledge the value of altruism. Giving rise to the question. What role should altruism play in modern education; education 2.0? From her blog; the most obvious value for an altruistic person is that they experience a more pleasurable life. I concur with the argument.

The biggest obstacle I see for people in embracing this, is letting go of the scarcity belief, and allowing themselves multiple streams of happiness. As always, we get tripped up by the either/or and scarcity themes that run rampant among our casual thoughts. For those hedonists...think of it like this...by giving someone pleasure - your pleasure increases; and the likely-hood of pleasure coming back again from the person you gave to!


This is my comment on her post:

"Education 2.0…nice headline. Altruism is definitely something that engenders happiness all around. There really is no objection to this. Nietzsche and Any Rand might have slight objections; of course they valued Self-Development and power more than moral altruism.

In the case of education it would truly work wonders for our society. From my experience, altruism is rare in its most authentic form. I was lucky enough to be brought up with a high value on altruism.

The truth of it is that when you help or make someone experience any level of pleasure, then you immediately feel a greater pleasure within. That is, if you allow yourself to. Many of my fellow classmates in school, and coworkers in several jobs viewed giving as pleasure-less. It’s as if they knew no other way of experiencing pleasure or happiness other than money or getting something for themselves.

We can honestly experience the whole palate of happiness through different channels of experience. The more we embrace an eclectic approach to our growth and happiness the more it can be shared with everyone else. Education 2.0 would thrive with touch of altruism."

p.s. Altruism is a powerful tool to use in communication. Sales, Marketing, and Business can thrive under the guise of altruism.

- Angel Armendariz

The Puppets - Who's Pulling The Strings

Analogies help us better understand things. I recently started thinking about puppets. The string puppets that dance around when you move the strings with your hand. I remember playing with those puppets when I was a young lad...good kid. The puppet now serves as a good icon for our lives.

Think of yourself as a puppet. You are both the puppet and the master of the puppet - the string puller. Your mind can be thought of as the master (string puller), and your body actions & movement as the dance of the puppet. In theory our minds guide our actions and behaviors in the ways we choose. Thus, you dance to your own beat - you pull your own strings. The problem arises when we choose not to be the puppet master. When instead of pulling our own strings we delegate the string pulling to others; or worse inanimate things.

A common puppet set goes like this: a person delegates one string to the economy, the other string to the news, the other string to the day of the week, the other string to a significant other. Alas, no more responsibility, now in this example we are no longer our own masters...we have given away all our powers to act and be as we choose.

Now, we are pulled every which way by the new appointed puppet master. We become clowns...a spectacle...a side-show dancing dramatically to the ambiguous movements of these inanimate string pullers. Ultimately, however, we can choose to wake up and take back our strings, and assume control of our puppets. When this happens you have control, you take responsibility, you dance as you choose. The only actions and behaviors are based on your own string pulling, not somebody else's.

In this way it would not be uncommon for someone to choose to be blissful, energetic, passionate, competent, loving, excited, and optimistic....because all these states of being are as easy simply making a choice...even in the face of spectacles, crises, panics, or what have you.

Angel Armendariz

Wall Street Market Chaos and What That Means to Home Owners

Wall Street Market Chaos and What That Means to Home Owners

The end of the housing boom has given way to the long predicted housing bust.
The Wall Street spectacle is playing right before our eyes through television and all major media outlets. We're hearing things about the credit crises in the secondary market sectors, which also effects most other U.S. industries.

The Wall Street Journal reported today that Paul Kasriel of Northern Trust stated,
"Housing's going to stay in a recession and it's starting to spread to other parts of the economy, especially the consumer sector."

How does this effect consumers across the U.S.? More urgently, how can we minimize the effects of the housing crises?

The answer seems to be to provide information and resources to help homeowners understand what is going on and what they can do.
The information seems to be ambiguously scattered, and difficult to come by. Green Castle Group LLC, a consulting & Sales Training agency in San Antonio, TX;
has recently released a free guide for Homeowners. The guide is provided as a service to the community in hopes of alleviating the pressure felt by homeowners
during these uncertain times.

The two owners of Green Castle Group LLC, Angel and Eric Armendariz worked in the mortgage industry in Boston, MA; before moving to San Antonio to start-up a Consulting agency to improve sales performance for Corporations and Organizations.

The e-book is a resource for all homeowners, that includes,
pertinent information for protecting homeowners in this critical time of need. The e-book is available free of charge at their website http://greencastlegroup.com/.

Rigid or Flexible Capitalist -What the Coming Economic Downturn Requires of You

"Markets crashing, Armageddon, it's never been this bad!" These are some of the resounding headlines around Newswires. When Gabriel's trumpet is the sound of the Wall Street bell...who do we call on for help? My choice is our good ol' American pal Ralph Waldo Emerson. I can here the sarcastic "oh boy" already...but hold on a second; let me explain. You see there are a couple of things that we can take from our long deceased friend.

First thing is Self-Reliance(self sufficient/effective). Now, of course we are a vastly interconnected society, and economic downturns can effect us in several ways. However, I chant the principle of Self-Reliance because this is what gives us the ability individually to become more capable. Evolutionary Theory has taught us that the more adaptable the organism, the better it will survive any changes. The more specialized (one-dimensional) an organism is the more vulnerable it becomes. Thus, any change to its environment can potentially cause its annihilation.

I use this as an analogy for our own selves. The more we can embrace Self-Reliance, the more we increase our adaptability. Take for instance the Wall Street Banker that specializes in Mortgage Backed Securities. That is a pretty specific specialty - the equivalent to a turtle in the animal kingdom. The equivalence I refer to is the fact that both the turtle and the banker can only function in a very limited sphere/environment. If that environment becomes threatened, than their existence becomes compromised.

Now, lets take another example. A professional Sales Person. A highly skilled sales person can work selling everything from fruit baskets - to selling the masses in voting for him/her as the next president. Sure, I'm extending the utility of a sales person, however, selling a fruit basket effectively requires one to adapt to your clients. To sell a nation on your competence as a politician requires adaptability to opinions, polls, and peoples concerns. The equivalent to a virus or bacteria in the biological world - not in the bad sense; in the sense of adaptability. So Emerson's long forgotten Self-Reliance essay would be a good wake me up for the common capitalist. Take a lesson from nature and be the tree that bends with the hurricane and remains standing. Not the rigid oak that cracks and breaks.

- Angel Armendariz

Communication Universe - Are there Absolute Laws?

"Desire is possibility seeking expression, or function seeking performance."
- Wallace D. Wattles

In quantum physics scientists are in a race to find the "absolute" laws of existence. The presupposition is that "absolute" laws actually exist. We generally assume that there have to be absolute laws or ultimate truth. But, why do we think that? Maybe its a desire for a sense of certainty of some permanence to our lives. Nonetheless

I now ask the same question of Communication. In the broad category of Communication lets include all interpersonal forms of communication. Sales, marketing, casual persuasion, pick up strategies, essays, and public speaking. Would we be able to assume that these communication modes abide by "absolute" or "universal" laws? We would of course use something more fundamental to communication to describe this underlying template we suspect. Principles, are generally the equivalent to the quantum physicists "absolute" laws.

Acting is Sales?

Lets look at some principles. We'll first venture into Acting. Acting is all about communication...
James R. Alburger, acting and voice-over coach, gives this as the recipe for Selling the audience:

-Interrupt
-Engage
-educate
-offer

James, gives his students those for "principles" for capturing listeners attention. Hmmm...If i didn't know any better I'd say that those principles look eerily familiar to a sales pitch process. Or even a marketing pitch. Lets look at a famous sales pitch process. This is Neil Rackhams's Spin Selling formula:

-Situation
-Problem
-Implications
-Needs-Payoff

Courtship Ritual

Interesting...Could this apply online? Maria Veloso, a web copyrighting master, says yes. In Mitch Meyerson's book, Success Secrets of The Online Marketing Superstars, Maria Veloso describes a sales script meticulously made to move in the same linear format as the two examples above. She obviously gets the fact that the process is not about a "quickie"...she describes it quite intimately however, courtship like -"Seducing your Web visitor is like a dance, wherein you lead and they follow. You make a move, they respond accordingly, you take another step and they follow your lead in a seamless relay that ultimately leads to the sale." How's that for using the courtship analogy...

-Angel Armendariz

What Advice Would Einstein Give Bear Stearns?

In study and increasing intelligence the acceleration/adaptation template is somewhat famous, in regards to the beneficiaries of using this powerful force. Henri Poincare, famous mathematician and scientist; used the ac/ad template to erupt his creativity, producing some of the most important scientific works of his time. Einstein used to say that after wrestling with a difficult problem through arduous study and research; the aha moments would come during the casual bouts of everyday things. He once inquired to a friend from Princeton asking,"Why is it that I get my best ideas in the morning while shaving? The answer of course falls into the natural working of the creative mechanism; that works in the ac/ad format. Its almost an iconic symbol of sorts...the image of the scientist laboring arduously to solve a problem...researching, testing, questioning, etc.(acceleration). Followed by bouts of rest, sleep, recreation, etc.(adaptation)....leading to the solution, epiphany, or realization of the missing piece of the puzzle.
Economic cycles of the ac/ad kind are commonplace. The systems in place to regulate or deregulate businesses across the U.S. work with the intent of the common good. The Federal reserve board for example establishes key interest rate payouts as well as governmental watch over economic stability to ensure the "growth" (acceleration) of the U.S. economy and at times "deceleration" (adaptation) to maintain a state of productivity. Keenly aware of the dangers of rapid growth, government adjusts economic inputs to ensure a cyclic stability. Unabashed growth leads to dire consequences as is the current case in the housing market, with over appreciated property values across the majority of U.S. metropolitan areas. Ignited by profit insatiability, and lack of understanding of the underlying templates at work; investors over exploit market niche's and start to fantasize of a never ending parade of exponential growth and lead themselves to their own graves and taking with them other interconnected markets. Case in point, Bear Stearns, New Century, American Home, and many more yet to come. Its an interesting blind spot in most individuals as well as businesses and groups; that when "good" times are prevalent, such as the case with exponential growth we start to believe that we have somehow fooled the laws of existence. Continuous growth is definitely possible, and happens all the time; however, this occurs when the understanding of cycles and the ac/ad template is headed. Speculators and traders in numerous markets profit enormously on a continual basis, no matter what the market condition, because they are aware of "bull" markets (ac) and "bear" markets (ad), and adjust their bets accordingly.

"The monetary history of the last four hundred years has been replete with financial crises. The pattern (template) was that investor optimism increased as economies expanded, the rate of growth of credit increased and economic growth accelerated..." Manias, Panics, and Crashes, by Charles P. Kindleberger and Robert Aliber.

A classic example of a business suicide by neglect of the ac/ad template is Enron. The thirst for continual profit, that was unsustainable through their methods; caused fictitious selling up the value of Enron stock that really had limited value...metaphorically speaking they were "overtraining"...way beyond overtraining and eventually they dug their own grave, and down with them came billions of dollars in investor funds.

- Angel Armendariz, excerpt - Untitled

How Selective Are You?

The more you know, the more specific distinctions you can make about a particular subject. Obviously, continually educating yourself is as necessary as daily exercise. However, do not let yourself get hazed into a confusing onslaught of information overload. It is rare to see this; it's more often the case to see lack of information than abundance of it. It still remains true though that even unconsciously we are bombarded with millions of bits of info. daily, that can obscure the clarity of our underlying principles. A funny thing came to my mind not to long ago. Someone told me that I was very selective with what I listened to, who I spent time with, and even what I exposed my sight to. It was interesting to note someone making that observation. Than I thought to myself..."Why would you not be selective?"...."Why would you allow any random object or force invade your mind?"...a quick analogy followed..."It's like being a prostitute of sorts....isn't it?...except without getting paid"...I laughed and smiled about it. But if you honestly think about it that way, it sort of is. I mean, most of us are selective with who we choose to be intimate with, or our mates, because it is assumed under cultural rules that we will be with them "till death do you part." Well, interestingly enough every bit of information that enters your perception (hearing, seeing, feeling, tasting, smelling, etc.) becomes recorded forever as well, throughout your mind and body. So then, wouldn't you agree that it would make sense to be selective about which channels of influence you allow to buy real estate in your mind? Of course it would. Passionate, non-conforming individuals should be aware of this, and be selective. Give yourself a creed. Tell yourself what standards of selectivity you will stand by. This will help you at all times make wise decisions that will have a cumulative effect on your Success and who you become.

- Excerpt from - Sales Gods II, New Pathways to Development, coming soon
www.godsofsales.com

How to Become a Sales God

"...Forget your feelings and thoughts. Simply listen with interest on the client. The more you're able to do this, the more the client feels good about being open with you. Think about something you do well, or enjoy doing; you'll find that when you are doing these things you aren't thinking about your thoughts or feelings; you are so engaged and in unity with the event that you transcend your self-talk and feelings. When focused intently on the client you go beyond yourself, and work from a higher level of performance. Furthermore, as you engage the client you become sensitive to reactions from their body posture, eye movements, skin coloration, and other responses the client is having at the moment. When engaged on the phone you want heightened awareness of the tone, pitch, pace, and mood of how your client is communicating. How something is said and how something is expressed by body movements is almost always more important than the content of what is said."

... "Everyone has a way of doing the things they do. From the way you choose where to go to dinner, to the way you decide what to wear to work. The actions you take and the decisions you make follow a certain pattern. You have your own individual way of coming to a decision, and of getting yourself to take action. When buying a product/service you might not even realize that there are specific steps you take each time you make a purchase decision. It would be pretty inefficient to use arbitrarily chosen steps to make a decision every time you had to make a purchase. We have consciously or unconsciously developed a specific combination of feelings/thoughts within ourselves that will cause us to "make sense" of the purchase decision, and buy. If we know the exact steps a person takes when making a confident purchase decision than we can provide our pr/s in the manner necessary to create the sale. It is much easier and wiser to use a pre-existing system - in this case a comfortable buying strategy, than to try to create a whole new buying pattern. "

Excerpt from my new E-Book How to Become a Sales God
available at www.godsofsales.com
Click to Order Online Now!