All you have to do is believe and ask!!

When Tulane University Professor Jeffrey Barach ran for a seat in the U.S. Congress, he asked a noted political consultant what it took to run a successful campaign.

The consultant replied, “One word: ask!”

Candidates must have the ability to ask for money, votes and help. “So, also, with leadership,” adds Barach. “Commanding is a form of asking. When a leader personalises a vision, he or she is asking others to share it.”

Yet, asking is hard for many people. For example, some sales people fear asking for an order.

How is the fear of asking overcome? A successful college fund-raiser once advised Barach that people cannot ask for donations if they think the would-be donors are doing them a favour.

Of course, in a sense they are and fund-raisers should be grateful and solicitous. But they also should recognise they’re offering donors an opportunity to do something for themselves.

“The solicitor has to believe that the donors’ gift solves a problem for them,” Barach maintains, “or the tone of voice will not be right.”

The same principle applies to selling anything. A student in one of Barach’s summer courses sold knives, mostly to college girls as part of their hope chest.

His classmates criticised him for hawking expensive knives to young women with low incomes.

He countered that they were great knives,and the smaller sets were a good value, although he agreed that he shouldn’t sell them his big ticket ($200) sets.

Later in the summer, however, that student told the class that he had come to believe that the larger sets of knives also were a good value,that his customers would appreciate them in the long run.

What amazed him, he added, was that as soon as he came to that conviction, his sales of the larger sets increased radically.