by Gregg Swanson
Want to increase your sales performance? The real obstacles to sales success are often the mental, emotional and internal barriers that salespeople struggle with every day.
Why are the most talented salespeople often underachievers? What obstacles prevent them from achieving success? How do the less-talented salespeople wind up being overachievers with their sales efforts compared to their other colleagues? Do certain mental skills help someone to achieve high sales performance levels? What separates the high achievers from the low achievers in sales?
Conventional training programs for salespeople overlook the major hurdles in attaining success. They concentrate completely on effective sales and closing methods. But sales talent, using the right methods, and lack of motivation often aren’t the major hurdles for salespeople to overcome to realize success. The real obstacles are similar to those of champion sports competitors: the mental, emotional and internal barriers that salespeople struggle with every day.
The foundation of a salesperson’s belief system is self-talk, and this system helps form your feelings about the level of success you have achieved in your sales performance. Inner thoughts can either propel you to failure or lead you to success. But many times, people defeat their own efforts with negative thoughts.
You could call it accidental self-sabotage. Thoughts like “It’s a slow economy for sales right now,” or “It will be a miracle if I close half as many sales as I did last year,” are just two examples of self-defeating self-talk. Trying to sell while thinking like this is like trying to run up an icy hill while wearing slick-soled shoes. You will take one step up and slide down five!
All thoughts help set up your belief system, which in turn decides your behaviors, feelings and actions. Consequently, negative thinking leads you to putting off sales efforts and this results in poor sales performance.
Instead, consider using three effective components of a champion’s mindset in the following information. Use these components in the right manner and your sales record will soar to new heights!
Step 1
Write down the negative thoughts that creep into your mind and affect your sale results. You will soon realize a pattern in these thoughts. At this point, think rationally to counteract each negative thought and replace it with a positive thought. Replace “The economy is scaring customers away from buying,” with “I will not close the sale with every customer. It is the numbers that count. I am an intelligent, innovative salesperson and I can discover new customers and markets for all my products in spite of the rough economy. I will stay open for these new opportunities that I know will appear for me..”
Turn on your mind’s power so you can jump over every mental hurdle to attain championship status. The choice of the thoughts that feed your subconscious mind is yours, but you have to pay attention and choose consciously. As a result, you need to have confidence in the value of the products that you are promoting and your own sales abilities. Avoid believing that you lack the necessary abilities or that your products do not offer value to prospective buyers.
Many times, salespeople concentrate too much on their weaknesses and not enough on their strengths. Concentrate on your numerous achievements instead of the times you fail. You can program your inner being to concentrate on your strong points and this will help propel you to success with your sales performance.
Athletes are proficient at this and this is why they can compete on a championship level. You can sell at a championship level when you concentrate on your strengths! Remember at all times your communication skills, product knowledge, and belief that the customer will benefit from your product. This will compensate for any weaknesses that you may believe you have.
Step 2
Present a positive demeanor to potential customers and other individuals that you meet on a daily basis. Praise your own performance using positive, self-talk phrases as in “I assist others in achieving their goals.” and “I offer products of value to all customers,” to reach a high level of sales success.
Concentrate on your sales achievements and mentally praise your efforts. Learn from past mistakes, but then move forward with the next sale to increase your sales performance. Keep a list of your successes in a journal. Record the date and times when you were on your game big time and were proud of what you accomplished. List at least one accomplishment each day. Read over this list on a regular basis, but it will be especially useful on problem days.
Fill your thoughts with optimistic goals and opportunities. Thoughts such as these are an effective mental tool that will lead you to a championship sales results.
Research performed with one million+ subjects over a 30-year period proved that the most powerful influence on sales performance is developing optimistic expectations. Motivation and ability are not always sufficient to propel one to consistent results in a sales career.
Optimistic or pessimistic expectations often determine the outcome of your efforts, in spite of your motivation or skill level. Studies also prove that the participants who had an optimistic attitude enjoy healthier lives and live longer, so you can benefit from a positive attitude in all areas of your life.
You need to believe you can succeed even with any of the hurdles to jump, challenges to conquer and down days to overcome that often come with a career in sales. Keep believing that you can triumph even when you need to deal with antagonism, rejection and resistance.
The way you handle yourself in defeat with your daily sales efforts has a dramatic influence on the level of success you will attain. Retrain your thinking so that you consider setbacks only a minor inconvenience. You can use your knowledge and experience to discover the right way to overcome the setbacks, which will lead you to higher success rates.
Step 3
You can learn to set optimistic goals and expectations. Anyone can learn how to overcome negative thinking; even hardcore pessimists can re-train their thinking patterns. Once you’ve conducted your analysis of your own pessimistic or negative thought patterns in Step 1, you can practice changing negative patterns into positive ones. A professional psychologist can help you with cognitive training, or you can attend special seminars on optimism. Training such as this will work effectively not only for your sales performance, but your entire life!
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