A salesperson who doesn’t believe that she is the best salesperson is better than the salesperson who believes that he is.
Growing Through Your Mistakes
When you don’t believe that you are the very best, you are aware of your mistakes. You notice what you did wrong. You are honest with yourself when you analyze your performance. This willingness to believe that you make mistakes is what allows you to adjust and make changes that eventually improve your performance. It’s how we learn.
The salesperson who believes that they are the very best isn’t aware of their mistakes, and so they make no adjustments. They aren’t honest with themselves or others. The salesperson’s willingness to lie to themselves prevents them from improving.
Owning Your Failures
If you don’t believe that you are the best, you accept responsibility for your failures. You don’t blame your failure on your prospect’s inability to perceive the value you create or your competitor’s lower price. You don’t blame your failures on the economy or some other factor over which you have no control. You don’t blame your sales manager or your territory. Owning your failures is what empowers you to do something different.
The salesperson who believes that their failures are caused by something external disempowers themselves. Instead of owning their mistakes, they blame someone or something else. Blaming others is a recipe for sustaining poor performance.
Taking Responsibility for Your Own Growth
The salesperson who doesn’t believe that they know enough will take on personal and professional development projects. They will work to find areas where they need to know more, and they’ll work to learn it. They’ll find areas where they need to develop new choices and discover what other people are doing. They’ll model successful people’s beliefs and behaviors. This salesperson will find new opportunities.
But the salesperson who knows everything cannot learn anything new. So they stagnate. Even if they knew a lot, as time passes, they fall behind. Instead of getting better over time, they start to slip and do worse.
The salesperson who believes that they aren’t the best salesperson ever is willing to change. The salesperson who believes themselves to be the best is often the worst salesperson.
