Your beliefs are critical to your success, in sales and in any other endeavor. They determine the actions you take—or fail to take. They also determine the outcome of those actions.
Your Identity
Some salespeople struggle to prospect because they believe that they are “just another salesperson.” This belief makes prospecting more difficult because the identity they have chosen for themselves is weak.
Successful salespeople believe that they are “value creating, trusted advisors.” This is a powerful identity. Even if the salesperson isn’t yet these things, the aspiration alone is enough to make it easy to take action. It’s powerful, confident.
Bothering the Client
I’ve heard people who are paid to sell say, “I don’t want to bother anybody.” The admission of that belief is the result of a poor identity. If you don’t believe so strongly in what you do and sell that you can’t wait to share it, your beliefs are your biggest problems.
Trusted advisor, consultative salespeople know that they aren’t going to waste their clients time. In fact, they’re so good at what they do they believe that the time the client spends with them is worth paying for. They’ve got the chops to bring value to every interaction, and they’re disciplined and prepared.
Selling Something
A poor belief system sounds like, “Everybody already has a supplier. They don’t want or need to change.” This belief is a results-destroyer. If you believe what you sell is the same as everyone else, then you have no belief that you and your company can make a difference.
Effective beliefs are built on the idea that “We can make a difference. We can do it better, and we have to help the client see what kind of results they could really produce!”
My Clients Are Too Busy
The unhealthy belief that “clients are too busy to spend time with salespeople” will undermine all of your efforts, if you can even bring yourself to act while carrying this terrible infection.
The healthy belief you want to infect yourself with is, “They need to make time to explore this because it’s going to provide them with a whole new view of what’s possible.”
What you believe becomes your reality. Choose your beliefs carefully.