Your handshake says a lot about you. It can convey confidence, warmth, and honesty, or it can signal weakness, uncertainty, and disinterest.

Either way, it sends a subtle yet powerful message about who you are, that is not lost on prospective buyers. Use these pointers to make sure your handshake sends the right signals, and creates a good impression with prospects and customers.

Avoid the power grip

A handshake should be firm, but not overly forceful. Beware of the unconscious tendency to pull the other person toward you as you shake. This can be interpreted as aggressive, and the prospect’s resistance to you will go up a notch or two.

Nothing wimpy

It may seem painfully obvious, but it’s amazing how many salespeople offer weak, perfunctory handshakes. This is a major turnoff to many customers. Firm and friendly always wins the day.

Look ‘em in the eye

As you extend your hand, establish eye contact and smile. Show some teeth! A warm and sincere greeting can make you an instant friend – and all things being equal, people prefer to buy from friends.

Get a grip

Never grasp the other person’s fingers. Take their entire hand completely in yours, and gently pump it two or three times.

Turn on the charm

You’ve been talking with a customer on the phone for several months, and meet them in person for the first time at a trade show. To express your pleasure at finally meeting face to face, you may want to cover his extended hand with your left hand briefly during the handshake. This increases the familiarity and warmth of the handshake. Do not attempt this with someone you don’t know. However, it is often a pleasant gesture when you are shaking hands with someone you’ve met previously. It simply says, “I’m very glad to see you again.”

What to say?

No handshake is complete without a spoken greeting. You can’t go wrong with, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” When meeting someone of high rank, such as the chairman of the board or founder of a company, you may want to up the ante with, “It’s a great pleasure to meet you.” After the initial greeting, your conversation should begin while you are still shaking hands, for example, “John tells me you’ve made some significant additions to your product line.” Your hand should be slowly and somewhat reluctantly withdrawn as the person begins to speak. This slow withdrawal indicates your keen interest in the person and what he is saying.

What’s your body language saying?

Posture is important, so stand erect, about three feet (one pace) away from the client, with your hands out of your pockets. Face the client squarely; never approach from an angle, or when the subject is engaged in conversation or otherwise distracted. Wait until you have his full attention before extending your hand.

Saying goodbye

When the meeting is over, it’s time to shake hands again. You now have the opportunity to leave a lasting impression. If you’ve established rapport with the buyer, it’s a good idea to gently grasp his right forearm with your left hand during the handshake, and restate any promises you may have made during the meeting, for example, “I’ll put the technical report you requested in the mail to you today, and give you a call next Wednesday. I enjoyed meeting you.” This two-handed shake signals your interest and commitment to your customer.

Practice makes perfect

Much like dancing, the fine art of the handshake takes practice. Stand before a mirror and extend your hand. Check to see if you’re projecting an image of confidence, warmth, and enthusiasm. Keep in mind that your handshake reflects your personality, and should be a spontaneous gesture of friendly greeting that comes naturally from within. With a little rehearsal, you will develop the ability to tailor your handshake to every situation you face, and each individual you meet.

Your handshake is a powerful business asset that can help you close more sales, and build lasting and profitable relationships. The time you spend working on it will be time well spent.

Michael Dalton Johnson is the Editor & Publisher of “Top Dog Sales Secrets”, the best-selling sales book featuring advice from 50 renowned sales experts. He is the Founder and Publisher of SalesDog.com, an education resource for sales professionals. Johnson is a successful entrepreneur with over 30 years of business leadership. For a free subscription to his weekly sales tips newsletter, visit his website at http://www.SalesDog.com

For a start, as in the example we just talked about, this limits you to just 100 people. But if you take a strategy of using the 100 people you know to reach the other 9900 people then the game changes dramatically.

Your personal data base wants you to be successful, they just don’t know how to help you yet? So you need to start to train your database to help find you business. One of the easiest ways to start this process is to make sure that every time you meet anyone, anyone at all, that you ask them this, Do you know anyone who might be thinking of buying or selling ( your product)?? in the near future?’ Don’t try to sell them something today, ask them to refer you to someone they know who needs your service. By the way if they want to do business with you, they will say so. Give them your card, and swap it for theirs. In fact give them 6 cards that they can hand out to other people for you.

One trick I like to use is to prompt them to put your cards in the glove box of their car. We all know that the glove box is rarely emptied out, and sure enough, at some much later date when they are asked, if they can nominate the best person for the job, they will remember they have your card in their car and they will surely pass it on for you.

Give and you shall receive is the other important strategy. So often we are going for the sale, instead of offering to help someone else become successful, and by way of doing this we train them to see the value in referrals. Giving out a referral to your Sphere of Influence is like throwing pebbles into the pond. Each time you through one in, a ripple runs out across the water, soon or later it will bounce off something and the ripple will return to you. The more pebbles you throw in the pond the more come back your way.

Start today to make your database your most powerful marketing tool. Meet with them as often as you can, even form a regular meeting arrangements like a breakfast meeting or a monthly lunch, use this time to share ideas and refer business between each other. You will soon become the sales person for the whole group, just start throwing pebbles in the pond!

So you see, creating a help squad has a far wider effect than just a quick sale for today – to the people you know.

It’s all about Standards and Extras!

Standards are what we know we should get and what we expect.

Extras are things that surprise us; sometimes I refer to it as ‘unexpected service’.

So how does it work, well it either falls into a Positive, Neutral or Negative experience. And what can affect the perception of the experience is the way it’s been communicated to them?

Let’s take the first time you take your car in for a service. As it’s the ‘first time’, the car dealer decides to valet your car for you. You are really impressed, (positive) however the next time you take the car in, it doesn’t get a valet (negative). Your expectation was that it was to be cleaned, simply because it wasn’t communicated to you the first time that the valet was a bonus or an unexpected service.

To make sure you get value from your ‘unexpected service’ your clients need to clearly know what the standard service is first.

An Extra well communicated = Positive.

A Standard = Neutral

An Extra not performed = Neutral

A standard not performed = Negative

And in the case of the title of this article, if everyone puts a chocolate on your pillow, quite simply today, it’s not enough!

And worse still, what happens if the chocolate isn’t there?

Robert Kiyosaki, in his book ‘The Cash Flow Quadrant’ says that “To be defined as a business owner you should be able to go away for a year and when you come back the business is performing better than when you left”

If this is not the case, for you then you are probably stuck working in your business not on it, and that’s a scary place to be.

A business is really just cash flow; it’s what you do with the money that will make you truly wealthy. If your business has just created a ‘job’ for you then it’s unlikely to be able to supply enough cash flow to invest in wealth creation. Worse still you will be so busy working in your business that you won’t even have the time to ‘invest if you did have the money.

For a plan to double or triple ‘your’ income go to here