Watching the Olympics has always been a love of mine. Like you I am awed by the demonstration of skill, dedication and perseverance we witness for 17 days. How many of us watch and can only dream of accomplishing so much in our lives? After 14 years of developing sales professionals I actually get to see similar dreams come true…
Both great Olympians and great Salespeople have three things in common.
Attitude- First, they have worked hard to focus and change their belief system to an Attitude of possibilities vs. one of limitations. Negative selling beliefs usually include ‘headtrash’ issues such as a lack of confidence, call reluctance, wanting to be liked to sell, and feeling inferior to others. Most of us grow up with both positive and negative beliefs and the ability to change our outlook about ourselves and our own capabilities is critical to us moving forward to greatness.
Behavior- The Nike tagline of ‘just do it’ is the definitive definition of success. Just ‘doing’ the behaviors we don’t want to do is 10x more important than waiting for the right attitude or ‘feeling’ before you jump in. In sales that means, identifying the selling behaviors you have to do every day, week and month and just doing them until you become unconsciously competent…owning them.
Technique- The Olympic champion understands how important perfecting their craft means to winning or losing. In almost all cases medals are awarded to those who have mastered their technique. Equally, the winning sales professional practices and understands the optimal ways to engage a prospect. These champions know you have to become a ‘student’ of sales and master the correct ways to engage, quality and close a new account.
Like Olympic athletes, great salespeople choose to be great. Are you doing everything you can to make your dream happen? What motivates you?
You might also be interested in:
