Wowsers! What a month. This is an announcement post, so it’ll be important if you’re one of the people who has been religiously following the Sales Psychology series and shooting for the prizes. If that isn’t you, now is your chance to discover the series.

When I kicked off this series, my biggest intention was to draw out my silent subscribers by turning them into active commentators. Some hundreds of awesome blog comments later, I’m declaring victory! We’ve had some fantastic discussion on hot topics like the selling power of PC-vs-Mac and why people won’t pay rates. Thanks to everyones diligent efforts to promote the series on twitter, loads of strangers have become readers too.

For me, writing this series has been a rewarding experience. So much of the sales technique I use is totally intuitive or has become that way. That is why the mental exercise of sharing my strategies, concisely, was very interesting. Over the last month I’ve had a rare opportunity to deeply reflect on the science and art of selling and I’m walking away from the experience with one simple conclusion:

Good Sales is simply good communication.

The initial post in this series seemed to catch the eye of many people simply because it explained why it isn’t only people car-yard staff who sell. Parents, teachers and friends all sell too. We’re all engaged in sales whenever we have an idea or agenda we want push.

Every technique that I’ve shared can be broadly applied to communication in general. The difference between knowing “sales” versus not knowing sales comes down to how effective your communication is. Sales is effective communication. Or…

Sales is communication, with intent.

Intention is what differentiates between those people simply chatting away and those with an agenda. As soon as we add intention to our conversation or dialogue, we become a salesperson.

I ended this month by wondering: Why isn’t sales patter, copywriting and objection handling taught in schools? If we can define Sales as “communication with intent”, it seems obvious to acknowledge that skillful communication is a critical life skill.

Before I lose myself in my own pseudo-deep and meaningful thoughts, I’d like to thank you for your attention and participation in this crucial topic over the past four weeks. It’s been a real pleasure connecting with everyone.

Now, let’s announce the winners of my “Tweet & Comment” competition. To qualify, you needed to comment on, and tweet a link to, every post in this series. The winners are picked, from the qualifying group, based on the quality of their comments.

3rd Prize

Originally the third prize was going to be a free copy of my ebook Demystify Your Fear but after some discussion, James Chartrand and I realized that the level of dedication (and quality of comments) deserved something more.

That is why I’m awarding the third prize not just to one person but to every person who qualified for the competition.

Additionally, James will gift each winner an hour of 1-on-1 consulting with her on web business/sales tactics. I’ll be adding my new, as-yet unreleased to the public, email consulting service titled “Problems-B-Gone: 10 custom fast-track strategies to get unstuck” which is a single, high-impact roadmap of advice for entrepreneurs looking to smash roadblocks and move forward fast. I’m still working on the name 😉

The winners of this new, improved 3rd tier prize are: Jared Kimball, Henry Junttilla & John Gilger

Well done guys. Your contribution to the discussion and promotion of this series has been awesome!

2nd Prize

This prize recognizes the runner up for “best quality” comments, who also qualified by meeting the tweet’n’comment criteria.

It goes to: Karilee <insert-last-name-here>!

Karilee appeared out of the intertubes with an explosion of insightful comments and fantastic tweets. She has won:

• A week long 1-on-1 power-consult on her business’s sales strategy with me (valued at $435)
• One hour email biz/sales consulting with web marketing genius James Chartrand (valued at $250)
• A free copy of my ebook Demystify your Fear (perfect for smashing sales self-sabotage)

1st Prize

They called me crazy for giving this prize away. After double checking the DSM-IV, I decided that I was sane and that it was a brilliant idea. The person with the most engaging, fantastic and superb comments (as well as consistent tweets etc) wins:

• An entire month of my 1on1 “Entrepreneur Shrink Gold Package” consulting service (valued at $1199)
• Two hours of rockstar email biz/sales consulting with web marketing genius James Chartrand (valued at $500)
• A free copy of my ebook Demystify your Fear (great for overcoming sales reluctance)

And who could this be awarded to but Melinda Brennan of SuperWAHM fame. Melinda allegedly kept a spreadsheet keeping track of her tweets and comments, ensuring she didn’t miss a single one. However, that wasn’t what won her the prize. She was selected based on the outstanding quality of her comments. Sometimes it was lending an opinion of significance – sometimes it was just asking clever questions.

Melinda became a key part of the mini-community that grew here and I’m pleased I can recognize her for it!

Thank you everyone!

If you qualified as a winner, thank you so much! If you missed out, due to my strict policing of twitter hashtags, then thank you for playing! I wish I could give something to everyone who participated, but until a cloning machine is invented I’ll be unable to dish out that much consulting time.

Over the past month, a very cool little group has sprung up here and while I know that it was incentivized, I suspect that those who commented were mostly doing so because they had something meaningful to say and got value from the articles.

I’m looking forward to getting back to my regularly-scheduled-programming with posts on all kinds of mental wizardry coming up soon.

For now, I’m off to celebrate the end of September by buying the first thing that someone tries to sell to me. I’m not going to make eye contact with anyone until I find a bartender!

PS Dearest competition winners – can you please drop me an email (info at petershallard.com) with your contact details so we can get started with your free consults. Please note that no consulting will begin until after the weekend. You rock.