Fear Of Success

The opportunity for sales people to improve their craft these days are tremendous, not only do you have the traditional sources, but between blogs, webinars, You Tube, and more.  Any sales professional who wants to improve their output only needs to set course and make it happen.  Many set off to improve their skills, but not all succeed, and key reason is they fail to fully execute.  They read the material, or watch and re-watch webinars, but rather than committing to the program, and committing to their success, they pick and choose, and cherry pick those things they like, and discard those things they don’t like or “find acceptable”.  By not executing the entire method or technique they are sabotaging their own success.

Like many aspects of sales, success is more a question of intent and attitude rather than skill.  Yes, your head space is much bigger contributor to winning in sales than pure ability; this is as true for prospecting as it is for discovery and closing.

It is interesting to watch participants in programs conduct, all too many come in looking to tell me why this won’t work, or that can’t work, or that may work over there, “but here, no way.”  Now it may be true that some elements may not apply to their sales, or some technique they read in a book works better there than here, but one can’t know that till they try.  But many of the most vocal protestors have made up their minds before the game even starts.

As sales professionals we regularly challenge our prospects and clients to change, abandon the status quo and embrace new solutions and practices, a challenge we often avoid ourselves.  No doubt the things that prevent us from embarking on change are the same things that prevent our prospects, what an opportunity to learn and grow.  If we can take the steps to overcome the challenge we can better understand what the client is going through and how we can help them through the same process.  Yet, sales people don’t embracing change and new opportunities; they lose in two ways, first, by missing out on winning techniques.  Second the intent or attitude we project to our buyers, what we communicate is “do as I say, not as I do”.  Bam, lose credibility, and lose the sale.

It takes no less effort to find a million reason why something won’t work, than to identify one reason it does, and then put it into to practice.  The difference being your intent and outlook.  Seems to me if you don’t want to take on something new, fine, don’t show up; but if you are going to play, you may as well come to play to win.


Tibor Shanto
http://www.sellbetter.ca/