In many of my blogs I talk about recognising steps needed to navigate the sales journey successfully. I am going to share in these upcoming blogs, the steps of that sales journey.
These are taken from my book –Selling is not optional
Before we get more deeply into those steps, let’s look in detail at how our perception of sales informs our understanding of that journey from the start. Sales is shaped more by how you think about it than by what you do.
We are talking about your mindset: your core beliefs about yourself as a salesperson and about selling itself.
All too often, these beliefs are negative and limiting. When you change your perspective, you also change your results.
People think selling is hard and assume that the ability to sell is an inborn trait.
They tell themselves, “I can’t sell. I tried it once and it didn’t work. I will look really stupid if I don’t close the deal.”
They think that in order to succeed in sales, they have to win every time. This leads many talented people to conclude, “I hate sales. I really hate it. I’m not interested. I will never be any good at it.”
People who have a more productive mindset around sales tend to instead think, “Sales is easy. Salespeople aren’t born with something I don’t have. I can actually do this stuff, if I have a great product and I provide excellent service, then I should be able to make a sale. After all, the customer gets a real solution to their problem from me.” A positive sales mindset always comes from understanding that the customer is a person with needs, wants, and desires that you can help them fulfill.
When you think about a sale that way, you will find it much easier to talk to that person about their problems and ask how you can make those problems disappear. The trick is to talk yourself out of the limited mindset and into the more expansive perspective.
When you don’t get a sale, do you think, “I knew it! I told you so, didn’t I? This is impossible.” Or, do you think, “Well, I tried one thing, and it didn’t work, but what did I learn? What could I do next time?” Here’s a story (author unknown, recounted by Jack Canfield and many others) that shows how important perspective is when you’re trying to make the seemingly impossible, possible. Here is a story about how mindset and looking at things differently plays a big part, when you go to sell a product or service.
The newspaper story
A man is busy working at home when his five-year-old son comes into his study. With the enthusiasm that children have in abundance, he asks his dad if they can go to the park.
Dad, in the middle of his work, tries to resist his son’s requests but the child persists. Frustrated, and hoping to buy some time, Dad looks around, lifts up a newspaper, and opens it to a double-page world map.
He pulls out the map, tears it up into small pieces, and gives them to his son. “After you put together this map of the world, then we will go to the park,” he says. The boy takes the pieces of the newspaper in both hands and scurries eagerly over to the other side of the room.
He sets to the task immediately. Dad knows that his son has no idea what a map of the world looks like; he thinks it will take ages to put it back together. Dad goes back to his work. Five minutes later, his son runs over. “I’m finished,” he says, “can we go to the park now?”
Dad thinks his son is making it up, but on the floor is the finished puzzle of the map of the world. “How did you finish this so quickly?” he asks his son. “It was easy, Daddy,” says the boy. Then he turns over the pieces of the jigsaw one at a time, and on the other side of the world map is a photograph of a man. “You see, when you put the man back together the whole world falls into place.”
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