Unlock the secrets to consistently winning more deals, earning client trust, and becoming a top-performing sales professional in today’s competitive market.
Part One: Mindset
Having the right mindset is crucial for closing deals and developing long-term relationships. It can also shift your outlook and give you a fresh perspective on your work. The following elements can help you reframe your situation and develop the right mindset to succeed.
- Self-Discipline: This is the art of mastering yourself. You’ll have little impact on others without self-discipline. Not only do other people respect people who respect themselves, but they also respond positively to those who demonstrate self-discipline. Part of self-discipline is what you do when no one is looking. Instead of giving in to distractions or emotions that don’t get you closer to your goals, use your time to focus on the tasks and work that help you become who you want to be.
- Optimism: Maintaining a positive attitude is crucial to success in sales. If you focus too heavily on the negative, all you’ll see are problems. When you let optimism lead you, you’ll see opportunities and solutions.
- Caring: Genuinely caring about your clients is underrated. Few things are as important as demonstrating care. Clients can tell when this is authentic, so invest in your clients’ success.
- Competitiveness: Cultivate a healthy competitive drive. This will keep you going and support your success long term by keeping your mind in the game.
- Resourcefulness: Being resourceful means you can make things work, even when they don’t go as planned. This is important to your mindset because it enables you to look for solutions instead of becoming blocked by obstacles.
- Initiative: When you are proactive, you drive results. Taking initiative means that you are leading your clients, offering them the benefit of your experience and knowledge.
- Persistence: Perseverance and resilience motivate you to keep moving ahead, even when it looks like success is far away. Remember, time removes all incumbents eventually. Persistence will keep you ready to step in at the right moment.
- Becoming an Expert and Authority: Establish yourself as a trusted expert in your field. Do the work to bring an expert mindset to the sales conversation.
Part Two: Skill Set
The right mindset is worthless unless you have the skills to apply what you know. There are many things to consider as you build your skill set.
- Closing: This is successfully asking for the client’s business. Closing requires skill, but you cannot close the deal and build a lasting relationship with your client unless you bring the right mindset to your sales conversations.
- Prospecting: There are many techniques to generate leads and fill your pipeline. The prospecting you do today is what supports your success months from now. If your pipeline is empty, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
- Storytelling: Using stories is a powerful way to connect, inspire, and persuade. It’s how humans make sense of the world around us, and our place in it. Storytelling can help you connect the dots for clients so they understand how their investment, strategic goals, and the wider business landscape are connected.
- Diagnosing: It isn’t possible to lead your clients to success without understanding their needs and challenges. This draws on your business acumen and ability to listen.
- Negotiating: Negotiation is about reaching agreements. There is an art to it, and every salesperson must master this skill.
- Business Acumen: To be more like an advisor than a salesperson, develop a deep understanding of business fundamentals. Without deep knowledge of business trends impacting your clients’ business, you will struggle to help them. Business acumen is key in consultative sales.
- Change Management: Helping clients navigate change has become more important in our ACDC environment (one of accelerating, constant, disruptive change). Instead of offering a solution to an isolated problem, effective salespeople must help shape their client’s future.
- Leadership: Consultative salespeople understand they must lead their clients to the right outcomes. This requires a number of leadership skills so you can take the initiative to guide the conversation and help your client reach their strategic goals.
- Communication: Effectively conveying ideas is critical for building consensus and finding strategic alignment. Listening is equally important, and it takes practice. Without working on your communication skills, you cannot get the information you need to develop the right mindset.
Your mindset and your skill set work together to help you achieve success. It takes time, work, and commitment to hone these elements and keep them sharp. You can find help developing yourself in The Only Sales Guide You'll Ever Need and Elite Sales Strategies: A Guide to Being One-Up, Creating Value, and Becoming Truly Consultative.
