Power selling has a lot to do about faith, and faith is a funny thing. While most people believe it when they see it, people with faith see it because they believe it! The "power" in power selling comes from believing–believing in the product or service you’re selling, in your customers or clients, in your personnel, and especially in yourself.

The first step to becoming a power seller, is to believe in yourself. Visualize yourself as a success, and you’re a big step closer to becoming a success. Over the next few weeks, I aim to show you how to establish a power-selling mindset by identifying your sales role models, packing your brain with positive thoughts, and envisioning your future success.

To get the juices flowing, let’s talk for a moment about role models. To be good at anything, I always recommend that you hang out with the people who are the best. To be a good father, be around good fathers. To be a good friend, hang out with the people who are good friends and work toward being a good friend to them. To be a good salesperson, rub elbows with the top salespeople. By surrounding yourself with the best, you benefit in at least two ways:

• Those people motivate you to strive for excellence.
• They model the skills you need to achieve your desired level of excellence.

As Charlie “Tremendous” Jones use to say, “You’re only as good as the books you read, the people you meet, and the tapes you listen to.” And in the blog posts that follow in the weeks to come, I am going to give you the tools you need to both find and follow the best people who can inspire you to success. 

This one’s an oldie but goodie. What happens to those hundreds or thousands of letters you send to prospective clients every year? My guess is that 90 percent or more of the recipients simply crumple up those letters and toss them into the trash or recycling bin. But what if that letter came back? Wouldn’t that catch the recipient’s attention?

That is exactly what I was thinking when I came up with the idea of using a crumpled letter as one of my key marketing tools. For years I would send letters to people who were trying to sell their homes themselves—For Sale By Owners or FSBOs ("fizzboes") as we call them—and to sellers whose listing contracts had expired. In the letter, I would explain that I knew the homeowner’s listing contract with the other agent was about to expire or that the person had been trying to sell her home for several months without success, and offering my services as a listing agent.

These letters generated some extra business, but I was not getting nearly the conversion rate that I had expected. I knew that most of the people receiving my letters were going to do the same thing I do when I receive similar sales letters; they were going to crumple them up and throw them away.

Tired of spending time sending out letters that were just going to end up in the trash, I decided that I would take action whenever someone tossed my letter in the trash or simply ignored me. I would resurrect that letter and use it to my marketing advantage.

About four days after I sent out the original letter, if the prospect had not gotten in touch with me, I would send out a nearly identical letter, but this time, I wadded it up first, smoothed it out a bit, and wrote with a red marker at the bottom of the letter, "Please Don’t Throw Me Away Again!" I inserted the letter in a plain envelope, addressed it by hand, and mailed it to the original recipient.

When I started this new marketing program, I saw an instant boost in conversion rates. I was receiving more than double the responses to my crumpled letter than I had ever received from the originals. Some people thought that I had actually dug through their trash to find the letter and resend it! Even prospects who knew it was a marketing trick thought it was clever and were willing to hire me. It showed that I would stop at nothing to sell their homes!

What made the crumpled letter approach so successful was that it was a unique twist on an old strategy. I was still using traditional direct-mail marketing but had discovered a way to freshen it up and make it new. People who were so accustomed to tossing unopened letters into the trash took notice of the crumpled letter. That’s the one letter in the whole stack that they did read.

I employ a similar tactic whenever I deliver marketing materials to prospects prior to meeting with them. Instead of sticking them in a plain brown envelope or one with my company’s logo on it, I place the materials in a FedEx or DHL envelope and drop the package off at the prospect’s home, leaving it inside the screen door.

When the owners arrive home from work, they drive up, get out of their car, collect their mail and perhaps their newspaper, open the screen door, and see a package from FedEx or DHL. Now which envelope are they going to open first? I can almost guarantee that it is going to be that unlabeled FedEx or DHL envelope. The shipping companies do not mind, because you are advertising for them, and the people receiving the package are usually delighted to receive a little surprise when they get home from work.

Remember, the ultimate goal of any correspondence you send out is to have the recipient read it. Just think of the number of messages an average person receives every day from newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, email, websites, postal mail, and while driving to and returning home from work. Ask yourself, "Why would anyone want to read my letter?" If you expect someone to read your letter, you had better come up with a good answer.

People who know me are rarely aware that I moonlight as a marriage counselor. I tell workaholic spouses that they had better “Date your wife (or husband) or someone else will.” The same can be said to salespeople: Date your leads or someone else will.

Sadly, I see far too many sales professionals buy leads and then completely drop the ball on nurturing those leads. That is the equivalent of spending months of your life wooing your sweetheart, finally convincing the person to marry you, and then completely ignoring him or her for the rest of your married life… which would probably be a very short-lived marriage. You must continue to nurture your relationship with your leads until they finally decide to hire you.

The nurturing process commences as soon as you receive the lead. In most cases, you are not the only salesperson receiving the lead. Your lead generation service probably sent the lead to several other salespeople in your area, and the first person to contact the lead has the best chance, by far, of ultimately landing the sale.

Tip: You should have a system that enables you to check incoming leads wherever you may be.

After that first contact, keep in touch with your lead. One of the best ways to do this is to add the person to a drip email campaign. With drip email, a series of messages are sent out automatically once every week or so, so the prospect does not have the opportunity to forget about you. When they eventually decide to buy, he or she can quickly open your email message to obtain your contact information and call or email you to obtain more information. You can set up a drip email campaign online at any of several drip email management sites. I use Rainmaker E-Central at www.rainmakerecentral.com.

At the same time, you should mail a marketing packet to your prospective client. Your packet should include a folder with the following materials:

• Your business card
• A letter of introduction describing who you are and how you help your clients
• Your resume
• Your company, team, or personal mission statement
• A brochure
• Reprints of any positive press your received in the newspapers

Remember, your marketing packet represents you, so invest in an attractive layout and design. To establish a brand presence in the mind of the person receiving the packet, every item in your marketing packet should have a consistent look and feel.

If you do not hear back from your lead, call the person sooner rather than later. Ask where he or she is in the decision process and whether you can do anything right now to assist them.

Whatever you do, do not let that lead off the hook. Before my wife agreed to marry me, I had to ask her 11 times. Remain persistent without nagging, and transform those leads into commissions, or in my case, a sweetheart for life!