Three Deadly Sins

 These three sins are deadly. They completely destroy your ability to succeed in sales.

The Sin That Is a Lack of Self Discipline

There is nothing that will damage your results more than a lack of self-discipline. You can read this as “laziness” if you like. Selling requires that you effectively take action. You need to be smart and, more so now than ever, you need to be thoughtful. You need to understand the principles and theories of effective selling so that you can develop strategies and tactics to win new business. But all the strategies and tactics are useless unless you take action.

The lack of action is really a lack of self-discipline. It the inability to will yourself to do the work. And it’s a deadly sin.

The Sin of Negativity

The second deadly sin is a negative attitude. Selling isn’t easy. It never has been. You can’t succeed in sales without a positive, optimistic attitude. You have to believe you can win. You have to believe that no matter how long the odds, no matter how much the deck is stacked against you, that you have the ability to create value, that you have the ability to make a difference, and that you have the ability to win (eventually, anyway).

Not many things will do more to ruin your ability to sell than a poor attitude. A deadly and highly contagious sin.

The Sin of Avoiding Accountability

The third deadly sin is a lack of accountability. You own your results. Any attempt to make excuses, to blame your lack of results on something or someone else, or an unwillingness to accept that you are the only one that can make the changes necessary to produce a different result will destroy your ability to succeed in sales.

It is not your pricing. It’s not your territory. It’s not your competition. It’s not your sales manager. And it’s not your customers. Only you can change, and only the changes you make will produce the results you want. You own it.

These three sins will destroy your ability to produce sales results. Engage in them at your peril.

Questions

How does lack of discipline destroy sales results?

Why is negativity so detrimental to producing results in sales or in business?

How do you own your results? How do you hold yourself accountable for the results you alone can produce?