“Just show me how to get results like yours.” Sound familiar? Heck, you may have even said those same words yourself. If you haven’t said them, you’ve probably thought them.

It is not the job of the top tier direct sales consultant to simply “show you” how he/she achieves their results. In fact, if that is all you are looking for, you have got a LONG road ahead of you. Not only that, but your top tier direct sales consultant wouldn’t be doing you or themselves any favors.

Below are some things you should look for (and actually want) from your top tier direct sales consultant.

· Road Map: The best part about a top tier direct sales consultant is that they have already been there. There is no need for you to re-create the wheel. Experience is something you cannot buy. Experience also allows you to learn from their mistakes. Mistakes in this game can cost you thousands of dollars. Not to mention all the time that has been lost by doing something wrong. Your top tier direct consultant can sit with you..evaluate your situation..go over your strengths & weaknesses..put together a plan..and show you where to look out for land mines.

All in all, experience is INVALUABLE!

· Accountability: I know it doesn’t sound like fun, but without accountability you will achieve nothing. I’m serious! You are FAR more likely to finish something when you know you are going to be held accountable. Add to that you are accountable to your top tier direct sales consultant, and you will not only finish your task, but it will be done well. Achievers and Top Earners take no excuses. The Master Yoda says, “Do or do not, there is no try.”

· Results: Your top tier direct sales consultant should be concerned with one thing…YOUR results. It doesn’t matter if you are just getting started or you have been in the game for a while. There are measurable results for you to obtain. The coolest part about results is that they are repeatable. You have been given a plan based on YOU and YOUR business. So any results you get can be done again by following the plan. As your results get better and better, your plan will be refined. This is when your business starts to be REALLY fun.

You can actually expect certain results because you KNOW what to expect based on your previous EXPERIENCE.

Here is something you can take with you right now. Always set S.M.A.R.T. goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely

Managed security service providers (MSSPs) specialize in making enterprise-class security services affordable for small to midsized companies. Instead of paying for in house security service management, companies can now receive first rate security management in a variety IT security disciplines at a much lower price, such as antivirus management, firewall management, intrusion detection and prevention, system configuration and management and virtual private networks. While almost all companies need security management services, the degree to which they benefit from implementing IT services depends on the benefits they hope to achieve. For example, companies that use MSSPs in order to reduce staff size typically benefit from employing a range of managed services, while companies that are interested in achieving best-of-class expertise in a particular area benefit by making their service needs more isolated. Regardless of what determines your company’s need for IT consulting management, you have to remember one thing: the degree to which your company will benefit from IT consulting management depends largely on the quality of an IT services provider. With this in mind, there are three questions that you should ask of IT consulting firms before you trust them with your company’s security needs.

How many Clients does a Firm have and what are its Financials?

While a large number of clients doesn’t necessarily indicate that a firm offers unbeatable quality, it does show that the firm has done well enough with its previous clients to quickly generate new business interest. To get a better perception of an MSSP’s quality of service, it’s a good idea to ask for references that pertain to clients that were once in your position (i.e. company type and security needs). In addition to asking for particular references, it’s also a good idea to ask for a copy of an MSSP’s financials. The last thing that you want is a company that folds before it can fully deliver on its services.

What are a Firm’s Procedures in the Event of a Security Incident?

Although the point of hiring an MSSP is to ensure that security incidents do not happen, most companies eventually experience a security incident, whether from within the company or from without. An experienced MSSP will be able to tell you exactly how it deals with specific security incidents, as well as provide you with anonymous case studies to back up their claims. If you encounter a firm that claims to never experience security incidents, don’t take it as a positive sign. Either the company lacks experience or provides services that don’t work as acutely as they should.

How Do a Firm’s Given References Compare to its Non-Preferred References?

Judging a company’s quality of service by its preferred references is like judging man’s character based on the opinion of his mother. Every company has a group of references that will rant and rave about its services. But in order to get a realistic idea of how well a MSSP satisfies its customers, you need to talk to some of its non-preferred references. If you find that these references offer a vastly different opinion of a company’s performance than do its listed references, you should consider the fact that you may end up becoming a non-preferred reference as well.

Sales consultants constantly are selling themselves on their own product or service. Each delivered presentation can have the effect of reinforcing their earlier mental purchase when they originally accepted their job offer. It seems logical then, that if prospects had the same data you have had, they will buy.

Newer sales training consulting takes a slightly different view however, as it has been discovered, over the years, that too much data leads to confusion, and you get prospect hesitation and procrastination. All of us have experienced this.

This prospect characteristic of not being able to decide seems to have gone viral within many sales teams and their prospect base. Week after week, or month after month the hesitating prospects stays “on-the-board”, but seems to never close. This is frustrating for sales consultants, sales managers and the vice president of sales, not to mention owners.

The subject of giving too much data to a prospect has been addressed by many others. What is not being addressed enough, is the concept of what is the right data to give a prospect? The answer is elementary. Only discuss the data that is important to the prospect, and no more.

Gee, that’s just great, how will you know? Ask them! Remember, one has to diagnose first! What the prospect thinks they want may not be the best solution, but prospects always buy what they want, so do you – all of us do. This is why in our company, we always go by the company motto that you “sell them what they want, but deliver what they want and need”. That is a good solution for those of us in the sales training field. It may, however, not be a good solution if you are selling a product. Solutions that the prospect perceives as specific to their perceived needs earns easier decisions and fewer objections, if it is feasible.

Your job description as a “consultant” requires that you give advice. After all, a consultant is an expert who gives advice. The only way you can do this is by fully researching your prospect’s industry, their company and by talking with them to discover where problematic areas are. The use of a very specific Targeted Needs Analysis is working for many. The Targeted Needs Analysis must be salient and brief to be effective. A buyer’s time is valuable and should always be respected.

To garner the data needed for a Targeted Needs Analysis, ask some current clients and find out why they purchased your product or service. Current clients are a rich and fertile field to do research on to find out your company’s good, bad and ugly points. Correct, as quickly as is possible, the bad and ugly points and take the good points and convert that data to a question format for your Targeted Needs Analysis.

Like a good doctor, good consultants show common characteristics. If you keep the following in mind, you can rest assured that you are dealing with someone who knows what they are doing. If a company has the following traits, they have worked their way to the top in a very competitive business. You don’t accomplish that by accident.

Requirement 1. Since you are looking for someone who knows how to maximize your web site, they better know how to maximize their own. Therefor, the first requirement is that their business comes up on the first page of the search engines results page for a search on internet marketing experts. Not only do you want someone who is in the top 10, you want someone who’s site page has lots of ‘weight’ to it. Check out the page rank of the “experts” as they come up (This page rank has nothing to do with where they are in the top 10). If your browser doesn’t have a little window to display page rank, you can download a free toolbar from firefox.org.

Requirement 2: Any company you want to pay to consult with better be willing to give at least equal value to what you pay them. A good indicator of their willingness to over deliver is to look the site over for free downloads of reports, courses, articles or other related information that would be valuable to you. The company that gives out a lot up front will be much more likely to give you more for your money.

The top sites can be found by doing a search exactly as follows with the quotes: “consultant internet marketing strategy”.