Are Self-Limiting Beliefs Constraining Your Sales Team?

"The winners in life constantly think in terms of I can, I will and I am. Losers on the other hand concentrate their waking thoughts on what they should have done or what they don't do".- Dennis Waitley

Allowing self-limiting beliefs to constrain performance, will in turn limit sales results because like everyone, salespeople hold stubbornly to private beliefs about themselves, clients, markets, competition, and even the economy, beliefs that can have an enormous impact, either positive or negative, on their sales achievement levels. If salespeople do not see themselves as providing value for their prospects and clients, they will tend to approach customers in ways that appeal to reasons for buying other than the genuine business need of the customer. This is what sometimes leads salespeople to oversell, for example, pressing a customer to act now in order to get a low price or to be too accommodating. It also can lead salespeople to adopt unethical behaviour, because they may try to sell a customer something that they neither need nor want. If they fail to take care of their clients best interests, salespeople will fail to build long-term relationships and lose customers.

Fear of Calling:

Recent studies have confirmed the obvious, that is to say that "fear of calling" in sales, can contribute to a significant proportion of lost sales revenues. One study that I read recently found that as many as 40 per cent of established salespeople experienced periods of "fear of calling" severe enough to threaten their future in sales. Stemming the ever-increasing costs of the "fear of calling" syndrome cannot be addressed by training alone. It requires an experienced coach or mentor to work with each salesperson¡¦s particular set of beliefs, so that they feel truly empowered to breakthrough their self-created mental barriers. One particular statistic in the following survey should give any salesperson suffering from "fear of calling", renewed confidence

How Customers Regard Salespeople Survey:

-- Salespeople who do not bother to make appointments. 45%
-- Salespeople who know nothing about the customer¡¦s business 60%
-- Salespeople who know little about their products and services 60%
-- Salespeople who call too often. 39%
-- Salespeople who don¡¦t call often enough. 49%
-- Salespeople who do not have the authority to negotiate prices. 45%
-- Salespeople who do not ask for the order. 40%
-- Salespeople who are not properly or sufficiently organised. 55%

Most Desirable Quality Customers Want To See In Salespeople? ¡VCompetence!

Customers Can Sense Fear:

We must remember that a salesperson¡¦s state of mind is instantly transferred to their prospect or customer, which means that the challenge for organisations is to constantly create a highly resourceful state in their salespeople. This is extremely important, because when salespeople lack belief in themselves, their product or their service, they unconsciously transmit their attitude to prospects in a variety of subtle and sometimes overt ways.

The Slippery Slope:

Typically, salespeople who believe that if they had lower prices, they would win more deals, tend to attract more price objections. This in turn leaves them feeling scared or reluctant to talk to prospects about what they have to offer. Their downward spiral then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Salespeople¡¦s desire to succeed may be so dominated by a need to be liked, that they¡¦ll avoid asking prospects for information that is needed to identify the prospects¡¦ compelling reasons to buy. When this happens, closing becomes a real issue because salespeople, fearing rejection, perceive that asking for the order might cause a breakdown in the relationship with their prospect.

Summary:The Importance of Divine Intervention From Above:

Most Sales Directors grasp the concept of activity management, skills development and knowledge development. Intuitively, Sales Directors also understand the vital importance of the right mindset. Yet far too many feel powerless to help their salespeople turn their negative beliefs into positive ones. Those few Sales Directors who do tackle such negative beliefs and are able to change their salespeople¡¦s self-limiting beliefs into empowering ones, have found an unbeatable path to success.

"How To Overcome Self-Limiting Beliefs Within Your Sales Team" follows.

Jonathan Farrington is the Managing Partner of The jfa Group jf-assocs.



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