Develop Your Three Pound Power Plant of Sales Success

Do you want a real competitive advantage in sales? Do want a defining differentiator that will make it more likely that you are chosen over your competitors?

You already have the essential component that creates that competitive advantage. You just have to develop it to its full potential. You were born with the three-pound power plant of sales success that is your brain. It’s all yours; you just have to use it.

Developing Ideas and Your Resourcefulness

The human brain is magnificent. We know of nothing else like it in the entire universe. Your personal three-pound power plant is the source of all of your ideas, and ideas and creativity are translated into resourcefulness.

You need ideas as to how you can create value for your dream clients. You need ideas that will nurture your dream client relationships over time. You really need ideas to help your clients and your dream clients with their most pressing business challenges.

The more you use your brain to generate ideas, the stronger it gets and the more ideas it generates.

• Sit down in a quiet place (early morning is best)
• Eliminate all distractions
• Take a piece of paper and start writing down ideas
• Make lists and answer questions (like, what could I do to nurture these relationships?)
• Fill the page (work for a solid hour, it gets easier over time)

Develop Your Business Acumen

Twice in the last two weeks I have been a panelist on a web conference. I listened to a few friends on a third web conference last week. On all three webinars, the future of selling was discussed, and in all three business acumen was described as being increasingly critical to success.

The great game of sales is changing dramatically. Your business acumen has never been more important than it is right now; in the future, it is going to be so critical that you will be useless to your dream clients without it.

Your brain is where your business acumen lives. If you don’t learn about business and spend the time thinking about how what you learn applies to you and your dream clients, the game is lost. Your three-pound power plant of sales success wasn’t born containing knowledge about business—or anything else for that matter. Much like a computer, you have to fill it with what it needs.

• Take a class on business, business finance, marketing, whatever
• Read business magazines and journals (Fast Company, Business Week)
• Read business books
• Read other books to understand how things work
• Find teachers within your company, your client’s company
• Make notes as to how you believe what you read applies to you, your company, your dream clients

Develop Your Emotional Intelligence

Your brain isn’t only the universe’s greatest computer. It’s also equipped with the ability to deeply connect with other human beings. It is equipped with emotions that enable these connections—or is sometimes disabled by them.

Despite the great technological changes in how we connect and how we manage and nurture human relationships, the great underlying fundamental is our connectedness to other human beings. Your brain can be developed to help you connect with other human beings. You have the ability to develop your emotional intelligence and your empathy.

• Recognize other people’s emotions
• Imagine yourself in your dream client’s shoes—really feel it.
• Listen to people and accept their interpretation as true for them
• Pause between stimulus and response and consider the outcome you need
• Use emotions to drive action

Develop Your Focus, Your Attention, and Your Ability to Take Action

Your brain isn’t very easy to manage. It is a novelty-seeking device that is easily entertained by new and shiny objects, regardless of their worth. It also loves to be entertained and distracted by things like television, YouTube, and mindless emails. Your brain can also be very, very lazy if you allow it to be.

To get the most of the trillions of neural connections in your pinkish-gray matter, you have to develop the ability to focus. You have to develop the ability to eliminate distractions (no, not all of the time, you need some distractions). You have to develop your ability to give the things that are important to your success in sales your complete attention.

That focus and attention has to be translated into the concrete actions that produce the outcomes that you need to succeed and that you need to be someone of value for your dream clients.

Develop and Control Your Beliefs

If there is one area where your human brain cannot be left to its own devices, it is your beliefs.

Your brain will, if allowed, create an unhealthy belief system designed to protect your self-esteem and ego. It will come up with beliefs that allow it to seek the novelties and distractions that derail your sales success. It will create a belief structure that rationalizes your unhealthy behaviors so that both of you don’t do what is uncomfortable—but necessary.

• Spend time thinking about what you think about
• Write down your deeply held beliefs
• Ask if your beliefs still serve you
• Compare your beliefs and the behaviors they recommend with the beliefs and actions of people who are producing the results that you desire
• Work on un-entrenching from unhealthy beliefs

Questions

What are you doing to improve your three-pound power plant?

In what areas do you need the most improvement to improve your sales performance?

What’s on your mind?