In these turbulent financial times, one sees small signs of panic all over.

But Can You Recognize Your Own Symptoms?

While we’re all aware of the “fight or flight” response to panic, and we recognize the symptoms in others, it is not always easy to see them in yourself. We tend to suppress feelings of panic and deny them, get too busy to acknowledge and deal with them, and in the process start to slip down a slippery slope that includes sometimes irreparable damage to our relationships, health, and financial situation.

Men, especially, want to appear “Macho” and in control, so we tend to cloak panic with aggression and bravado.

A Lotto Desperation

Yesterday, Rika and I sat in a restaurant and watched a succession of men feeding a lotto machine. We were amazed at the tension and desperation we saw in these men. They were gambling precious time and money with extremely low odds of winning anything, yet they probably saw this as their only alternative. Sure, some were just having fun, and some were addicted, but my overall impression was men on the brink of panic.

Men vs. Women

This article tells us why unemployment is hitting men harder than women, and this article tells us that “Unemployment Rate Soars for Older Men with Limited Education”. Women are better equipped to handle stress, and they generally panic less than men do, but we are all vulnerable.

Manipulating the Herd

The herd instinct is much more pronounced in our highly connected society than in past years, and politicians and the media are milking it for all its worth. They know how to manipulate with fear, exaggeration, and spin, and this often leads to mass panic in different degrees. Anyone who believes what politicians, mystics, and the media tells them is living in a dangerous fantasy world.

Scam artists are also very busy tacking advantage of desperate people.

Deadly Panic

Many highly publicized cases of deadly panic occur during massive public events.

• The layout of Mecca was extensively redesigned by Saudi authorities in an attempt to eliminate frequent stampedes, which kill an average of 250 pilgrims every year.
• Football stadiums have seen deadly crowd rushes and stampedes, such as at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield, England, in 1989. This led to controlled entry gates and stricter rules by the end of the 1980s to regulate seating arrangements.

6 Lifesaving Tips to Keep a Cool Head in Times of Panic

I know what it’s like to feel as though you’re on the verge of panic. From my personal experience, having been exposed to high levels of stress at different times in my 56 years of life, including military combat, business and finances, dangerous situations, fire, marital problems, divorce, and many other things, here are some tips on handling panic:

Tip #1 -Realize Stress Effects Your Perception

Perception is reality. Accept that our perception is never accurate, and that the more stressed we are, the less logical our assumptions, choices, and conclusions.

Realize that you don’t see the whole picture, and that you’re missing a lot of vital information as you develop tunnel vision and see everything through a lens of desperation, scarcity, and limitation.

Tip #2 – “YAHOO!”

Shout, “YAHOO!”

You Always Have Other Options.

The fact that we are not aware of our real options doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Your problem is in your mind, and you need a way to see through the eyes of a rational, intelligent, mature, relaxed, and creative person. As I always say, “You don’t have money problems; you have thinking problems.”

Tip #3 -Discriminate the Advice You Accept

Never take advice from someone who doesn’t already have what you want, or from someone who is more screwed up and stressed than you are. They will drag you further down the slippery slope to panic and loss of control. Taking financial advice from a social worker or teacher, for example, is just plain silly.

Question the motives of people giving you advice, and be especially careful of mysticism – this is a dangerous, irrational, and destructive escape route. Choose your mentors very carefully.

Tip #4 -Get Excellent, Level-Headed Support

It’s hard to cope alone, but help is always available from the right people. When you’re blindfolded, you need to be led by someone who sees the obstacles as well as the exits and solutions until your blindfold can be removed. Things are never as bad as they seem.

Finding a good support group usually means that what you currently have doesn’t work. If everyone around you is panicking, you want to remove yourself from that situation. Pessimists are no help to anyone.

Take note of the people in your life. Are they helping you or hurting you?

Tip #5 -Monitor and Improve your Self-talk

I have found the most tool to stave off panic and maintain a level-headed approach is my self-talk. I have always talked with myself, often aloud, and saying things like:

“This is a piece of cake. I can handle this. So what’s the big deal? What are my logical options? This is no problem for me – a mere hiccup to one of my talents…”

Remember, also, that the questions you ask yourself will determine, to a large extent, where you end up.  Find out more about this concept in my book, Break Free!, coming soon to JVWisdom.

Tip #6 -Is Your Philosophy Helping or Hurting You?

Finally, check your philosophy / world view / religion – it, too, is ether helping you or hurting you, and you have many other options. If a shoe doesn’t fit and gives you blisters, replace it.

DollarMakers is designed to provide financial solutions to any people in any circumstances, as long as they are prepared to learn, work, and persist until they are free.

Some Sales Managers experience the following challenges:

• Unproductive salespeople who specialize in whining new tunes
• Salespeople complaining that the customers can’t afford their products and services
• Economic downturns
• Absenteeism and showing up late
• Salespeople that are not loyal and leave for the slightest pay increase or incentive
• Salespeople that make excuses and are lazy
• Strong competition
• Hard to find and keep good salespeople
• No new information or tools to motivate their salespeople – they’ve heard it all before.

We offer Sales Managers the following tools for their beloved sales teams:

• Create unlimited streams of eager, qualified, and primed prospects
• Differentiate yourself from the competition by creating massive added value at no cost
• Offer huge, compelling incentives, bonuses and premiums to prospects for making a buying decision, at no cost to you
• Learn how to get the prospect’s undivided attention and lifelong loyalty
• Stop selling, and start solving
• Increase sales closing/conversion ratios through the roof  by using our proven systems
• Offer your salespeople exciting and valuable sales target bonuses at no cost to you

Our customized, in-house, 5-hour Joint Venture Bootcamps turn snailspeople into salespeople. We’re all about working smart and getting results.

A while back, my daughter took me horse riding. It was a wonderful and memorable day, and we’ll certainly do it again soon.

When we mounted, the leader of the ride told me that when we got to a certain field and we were cantering or galloping, my horse would start to veer to the right as he always did, and she showed me how to get him back on track with the rest of the riders.

Sure enough, as soon as we started galloping out of a canter, he started veering right and pulling away from the other horses. I simply followed instructions and soon had him back with the rest of the horses.

When I rode in Rhodesia, I used to ride a horse that always had to be second or have a horse in front of him in order to feel secure, however when we headed back home to the stables, he would move to the front and gallop like a crazy thing.

As the Arabian proverb goes, “The wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse’s ears.”

How to Predict the Future of Your Associates

People are also predictable.  If you battle to get a $200 check out of someone, don’t labor under the illusion that they will ever pay you JV commissions. When people reveal who they really are, believe what you see.

• You get to know people when they’re under pressure and on the line.
• Don’t believe their excuses.

You can predict the future by their past choices.

• Watch their choices in small situations to understand what they will do when it comes to real money and important events.

Watch for small clues, take care of the small details, and you can prevent larger problems. Benjamin Franklin wrote:

“For want of a Nail the Shoe was lost; for want of a Shoe the Horse was lost; and for want of a Horse the Rider was lost; being overtaken and slain by the Enemy, all for want of Care about a Horse-shoe Nail.”

Check Out the Spouse Too

When I was selling businesses, I would insist that the spouse was present at the interview. Usually, It was the man buying the business, and I would ask the wife about his habits, while he was present. I would ask her:

• if he had trouble getting out of bed in the morning
• if he did things he promised to do
• if he shaved on his days off

If she revealed that he was a lazy type, unreliable, or lacking in self discipline, I wouldn’t sell him the business.

Behavioral Patterns

Look for behavioral patterns, and do small Joint Ventures with people before going big, so that you can see who you’re really dealing with. Test in a small way before rolling out in a big way.

We often have people trying to JV with us who tell us, “As soon as I get time, I will join DollarMakers”, or “I am considering joining” – how pathetic is that? It takes five minutes to join. That is a sure sign of a liar.

Strong relationship are built on trust, and it takes time to build trust and respect. W.C. Fields said:

“Horse sense is the thing that a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.”

Earmark of Success

Successful sports people are usually successful in business, because they are disciplined, reliable, and understand that it takes time to succeed. Farmers also tend to be successful, for the same reasons, they don’t expect to sow on Monday and reap on Tuesday.

Past  choices are usually a good indicator of future behavior, as with horses. The difference is that horses are honest and uncomplicated, but eventually people will reveal who they really are. R.B. Cunninghame Graham, in his  letter to Theodore Roosevelt in 1917, wrote:

“God forbid that I should go to any Heaven in which there are no horses.”

Would that people were as honest as horses.

Many years ago, a relative of mine made an appointment to confront an evil church pastor about a serious issue of hypocrisy and double-dealing in her church. She prepared her case very well, and there was no doubt about the fact that the “pastor” was, in fact, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I’ll never forget what she told me when she got home from that meeting.

She said she felt as though she had imagined the whole thing; he made her feel foolish, he actually laughed at the facts she presented, and she left feeling convinced that she was wrong, that he was right, that she was guilty of being disloyal and negative, and that she actually owed him an apology for wasting his precious time.

The Deceptive Art of Distraction

Politicians and psychopaths are good at diverting one’s attention from the important things and questions they would rather not answer. They know that attack is the best form of defense. Salespeople are singularly adept at sleight of hand or legerdemain:

• Answer a question with a question.
• Baffle with unimportant facts.
• Use complicated explanations and trickery to throw your pursuers off track.
• Make light of exigent issues.
• Brush off serious accusations with a condescending smirk.
• Hug them while you knife then in the back.

Magicians use distraction all the time.

Even Good People Do This to Avoid Responsibility

My point? I used to attend regular, weekly sales meeting with a group of other SMI Distributors. At every meeting, we Distributors would tell our amazing stories to the meeting leader.

We would talk about all the leads we had “in the pipeline”, all the sales we had narrowly missed, all the things we were “working on”, and all the promises we had heard from our prospective buyers. We also spent a good deal of time making excuses, blaming the weather, the competition, holidays, pricing, traffic, the products we sold, the packaging, the economy, and of course our leader.

At one meeting our leader got up before anyone could start mouthing off, and his words have stayed with me to this day. He said,

“Today, I don’t want to hear any stories, promises, excuses, or lies. Don’t you dare say a word, any of you. This is a silent meeting.

Walk up to the board, take the sharpie, and write down the amount of sales you made last week. That means PAID sales. I will check your figures. Then get out of here, and don’t contact me until the next meeting.

I am only interested in results. Next week, I will fire the Distributor with the lowest sales. Now get out!”

We doubled our sales as a result of that valuable lesson.

Shape Up or Ship Out

Losers and underachievers specialize in the deceptive art of distraction. They will:

• ask you irrelevant questions
• create rumors
• seem very busy
• make excuses for everything

If you allow this kind of behavior, you reinforce their failure to take responsibility and you encourage them to become parasites and posers.

When you focus on results and refuse to be distracted, you’ll get them to shape up or ship out. And you’ll save loads of time.

Talk is cheap, and money buys the whiskey.

I knew a jeweler who attended a Dale Carnegie management training program with me  and returned to his business a changed man.  Suddenly, mall security guards started arresting thieves in his store.

When he remarked to one of the security guards that it seemed that crime was increasing in the mall, the security replied that the crime rate hadn’t changed – the guards had simply started intervening and arresting thieves, whereas before, they had turned a blind eye. They were rewarding my friend for his change in attitude towards them. But I digress…

What REALLY Motivates Employees

In his book, “Persuasion IQ”, Kurt W. Mortensen discusses a working paper by Kenneth A. Kovack of George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. Kovack researched the differences between what motivates employees and what managers think motivates employees. Here’s the data:

What Motivates Employees as Ranked by Employees

1. Interesting work
2. Appreciation of work done
3. Being well informed
4. Job security
5. Compensation
6. Growth and promotion opportunities
7. Good working conditions
8. Personal loyalty to employees
9. Tactful discipline
10. Help with personal problems

What Motivates Employees as Ranked by Managers

1. Compensation
2. Job security
3. Growth and promotion opportunities
4. Good working conditions
5. Interesting work
6. Personal loyalty to employees
7. Tactful discipline
8. Appreciation of work done
9. Help with personal problems
10. Being well informed

“Shared Ownership”

One thing that I believe will cover many of these requirements is “Shared Ownership”. I’m not talking about giving your staff shares in your company.  I’m talking about profit-sharing Joint Ventures, where employees get compensated in direct proportion to the value they add as measured in profit.

Front line employees are often to privy to information of which management is blissfully unaware, and many times by design. Empowering your employees by partnering with them:

• gives them an “ownership mentality”.
• reduces absenteeism, laziness, and shoddy work.
• increasing motivation, loyalty, productivity, interest, enthusiasm, and innovation.

Managing the Potential Downside

Opening opportunities to your staff has its downside and risks, and therefore should be carefully managed, watched, and controlled, while allowing enough freedom and accepting enough damage through honest mistakes and inexperience to remove fear and hesitation.

Clearly defined boundaries, regular, open communication, and quick feedback, and awareness of the power of operant conditioning, with it’s requisite fast reinforcement, is essential.

As “partners” (without legal implications, please), most of the above motivational factors (we should also be cognizant of Hertzberg’s Hygiene Factors here) will be more than adequately addressed, indeed enhanced, and your bottom line will see the results.

A lot of people are cutting costs and cutting back during this recession, which can make it harder to recruit the right people. 2009 can be a time of famine, drought, and scarcity in your Network Marketing / Direct Marketing / MLM business, or it can be the year you get stinking rich.

But first, we need to agree on one important thing, and that is that this is not a time to recruit desperate people. They say, “Desperate people do desperate things”, and that is true. You want to be recruiting successful, influential, Centers of Influence.

Recruit Leaders

When you recruit a Center of Influence correctly and manage that relationship, you will be amazed at how you can rocket your Network Marketing through the roof. They can sign up their leaders and use their existing communication and resources to build your business.

Follow Through

Most Network Marketers drop the ball after signing up a Center of Influence because they’re too obsessive, desperate, and self-interested. They follow what they are taught by their company, and they forget about the fact that they are, in fact, involved in a Joint Venture.

This is the difference between what you will learn from DollarMakers and what you will learn from your Network Marketing company. I have been recruited to join Network Marketing companies as a Center of Influence myself, and I have also recruited Centers of Influence, and in most cases I made a lot of money, so I know whereof I speak.

What is a REAL Center of Influence?

Now there is a reason why you haven’t recruited a Center of Influence before, and if you have, why they’re not performing. We’re not going to discuss that here. What I want to discuss is HOW to recruit busy people who have access to many other people who will do what that Center of Influence suggests they do.

• A Center of Influence is someone who influences many people who trust, respect, and like them, and who follow their suggestions.
• A real Center of Influence communicates regularly with his or her people.

Just to be clear, there are a lot of people who SEEM to be Centers of Influence and CLAIM to have large databases, but usually those databases are simply people who once opted into their database to get a free gift, and they don’t even know who the Center of Influence is, much less open his e mails or read them or follow his advice. I’m talking about a real Center of Influence

• who cares about her people and has a relationship with them.

Your Approach Must be Based on a Relationship and Reciprocity.

The Joint Venture Mindset that we teach through DollarMakers is that you should build business based on a relationship and reciprocity. I don’t do business with people I don’t know or respect, and who haven’t built some kind of trust relationship with me. I don’t even consider promoting people or products who have not contributed to DollarMakers or been involved with us. It is dangerous to work with unknown people.

This needs to be remembered when you approach a Center of Influence.

• You have to earn the right to talk with them or pitch them.
• You have to show them that it is in their own best interest.
• First, you have to know what they want, and what their “Hot Button” is.

Remember, Centers of Influence are being pitched almost daily by MLMers who do it all wrong. If you do what everybody else does you’ll have what everybody else has. Using the Joint Venture approach, you can differentiate yourself from all the others.

Tips for Top Notch Recruitment

In a nutshell, here are the simple points to follow in order to recruit a Center of Influence into your Network Marketing business:

1. Earn the right. Create reciprocity. Build a relationship. Contribute. Become known and respected. You have to put wood on the fire before you get the heat.
2. Position yourself. Look and act successful. Dress and groom yourself appropriately. Package yourself for success.
3. Find out what the Center of Influence’s Hot Button is. You need to understand his pain, problems, challenges, hopes, dreams, goals, and secret wishes. This takes work and research, but it’s well worth it. Be clear about what he wants, so that you prepare the bait / prize / incentive correctly.
4. Prepare your offer properly. Customize your presentation and be sure that it’s all about the Center of Influence to show her how she will benefit by joining you.
5. Make your offer in such a way that it is hard to refuse. Remove time, money, risk, inconvenience, and irritation, and add massive value and substance. Push the Hot Button effectively.
6. Close and sign him up.
7. Follow-up and management – this is the most important part. If you stop putting wood on the fire, it will go out, and you will be replaced.

Finally, remember this:

The Center of Influence you are going to recruit is not going to be doing your business on a full time basis – she already has a successful business, and you are simply an add-on. By neglecting this fact and assuming you and your products or services are the center of the universe, you will very quickly lose the relationship and commitment of that Center of Influence.  That’s what DollarMakers teaches.

If you want to acquire the Joint Venture mindset that will make the above possible, I suggest you join DollarMakers, get involved, and learn from about reciprocity, value, commitment, wealth, and Joint Ventures from us.

When he strode into the room in his thousand-dollar suit, I knew that George Choriatopoulos meant business. He was poised, purposeful and looked at each one of us intently.

He ripped the Goals Program off the office flipchart, calmly crumpled it up, and threw it into the bin. Then he leaned forward, resting his fists on the huge oak boardroom table.

“Gentlemen”, he said softly and with great intensity, “every week we meet here to discuss our sales and plans. You’re all independent business owners. Time is valuable to all of us.

From today, I don’t want to know about all the leads and deals you have ‘In the Pipeline’. I don’t want to hear about what you’re working on or whom you’ve met. I only want to know one thing, and then you can all get out of here until next week. This meeting will take just five minutes. HOW MANY SALES DID YOU EACH MAKE LAST WEEK?”

What Really Matters is Results

Salespeople are in the habit of making excuses and promises when they’re not delivering results. We’re all good at it. After all, we’re salespeople, right?

And often we lie to ourselves about what is really going on. We talk about our plans and goals, but what really matters is results. I don’t care about schemes and dreams – I care about results.  Intention and goals are important, but outcome is more important.

You Can’t Bank Excuses or Potential

If I say I will do something or produce a certain result on a certain date and I don’t, my excuses are of no importance to you. You can’t bank excuses or promises. Your accountant doesn’t want to know about potential and opportunities. The bottom line is real money.

Get Serious about Getting Results

This is real life and every day gone is gone forever. This is not a dress rehearsal. Let’s get real serious about getting real results. Winners will allow one or two slip ups, but sooner than later they will cut bait and stop working with you if you don’t produce.

2 Criteria to Reevaluate What’s Possible

I once trained the insurance salespeople in 91 banks simultaneously on a conference call. I asked them, “Can any of you double your sales next month?” they all replied that it was impossible, given their busy schedules and past results.

I then asked if it would be possible to double their sales if their families had been kidnapped and they knew without a doubt that their families would be murdered if they didn’t double their sales in a month. Guess what? All of a sudden it was possible!

I asked what they would have to change and do differently and stop doing, and we could create an action plan to accomplish 100% sales increase without calling in the terrorists. Think about it:

1. How badly do you want to double your sales?
2. What are you prepared to do?

By your FRUIT you will be known. Talk is cheap but money buys the whiskey. Action is all.

Anything that is customized or personalized suddenly becomes very much more valuable. We like our own names and our company names and our sports team names, don’t we? So when we customize a product or service for an industry or a specific business, we create massive increased value at very little cost.

Here’s How It Works

You can private label an innocuous shampoo for a good hair salon and make serious money. You can make a seminar or sales training program industry specific and sell ten times as many. I was recently talking with someone who created exercise DVD’s. How about making one for seniors, one for travelers, one for children, one for ladies, one for teens, one for busy executives… then market each one through the marketing and distribution channels reaching that particular demographic? For example, you would Joint Venture with seniors publications and clubs, AARP and seniors tours to reach seniors with your seniors exercise DVD.

Private Label Training, Seminars or Teaching

When you find excess inventory, you can re-purpose it in this way. You can also approach someone who presents training, seminars or teaching, and Joint Venture with someone who has access a particular market segment, while procuring the rights to market their products and services to that segment and receive ongoing commissions. For example, how about Training for Realtors? Get more specific with Training for Female Realtors and you’ll make more money. The more specific, the more terrific.

Let Your Access Lead the Way

Which segment of the population do you have access to, or can you get access to? Once you have access to a demographic/psychographic sector, you can go out and find products that can be customized or relabelled for that sector. Once you have strategic alliances in that sector, it’s easy to expand to the entire sector.

I once did seminars for an Executive Women’s Club and ended up serving all their clubs nationwide. Had you set that up, you could have asked for and received up to 20% of all my income from that market, and that would have put at least $20,000 in your pocket. All it took to get me into that market was a friend making one, single phone call. One phone call can be worth $20,000 to you. Do Joint Ventures work? You’d better believe it!

Sales Tip

Specialists get paid more and have more credibility. Understanding more about an industry than your prospect positions you as an expert. In order to do this, use statistics and education to differentiate yourself from the generalists who think they can cure anything from recessions and receding hair to bad knees and bad attitudes.

Management Tip

The more you understand your prospect and his business, the more likely you are to sell to him. Train your employees to ask questions, make notes, do research and create industry specific solutions. Learn the language and jargon of the industry you’re targeting. Become familiar with their hopes, dreams, challenges and unique opportunities.

“I am an innovator. This is a term of distinction, a term of honor, rather than something to hide or apologize for. Anyone who has new or valuable ideas to offer stands outside the intellectual status quo. But the status quo is not a stream, let alone a ‘mainstream’. It is a stagnant swamp. It is the innovators who carry mankind forward.”
~ Ayn Rand