Do you ever feel self-conscious during a call with a prospect? When that fear creeps in all your prior intentions go right out the window. If you are focused on yourself, you are focused on the wrong person. You are there to help them solve their burdens. When you are fearful, it keeps them from getting the solution they really need.
Since I coach people, I’m privy to their psychology. Often, my coaching clients come to me in a bad state of mind. They’re in what I call, “a dip.”
Let’s get this straight, the dip is a signal that your state of mind is off. You are out of sync. There is nothing wrong with you. There IS something wrong with the conditions you’ve created. Oh, and something else – I am not a psychiatrist. If your dip lasts longer than a few weeks, probably should get professional help.
But for most of us these few ideas can get us started.
Here are seven ideas I gave to a client who came to me about a month ago. He was a super high achiever, but he wasn’t in the right mental framework, and he felt it.
1. On Outcomes. Stop trying. Stop trying to make friends. Stop trying to get deals. Stop trying to get the outcomes that you believe you deserve. We call this “detachment.” The more emphasis you put on your outcomes, the less likely you are to run the process well. Let outcomes come to you. Go out and be interested in others. Be a good listener. Be curious (which I know you are), but let it happen if it’s supposed to happen. Read more
As part of my coaching and training work, I see sales culture problems everywhere. Yes, we train sales people. Yes, we coach leaders. And little of that has any impact on culture.
So what does? The quote says it all: Stories. Read more
Status quo is a Latin phrase meaning the “existing state of affairs.”
In my sales training practice, I watch sales teams continue to do the same things, over and over, and expect results to be different. I hear them say, “Well, if I could just do more…” But the correct way to challenge it is not to do more. It is to do different.
Here are three things you can begin doing immediately, that cost you NO MONEY, but that begins to challenge existing paradigms. Read more
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Think about how much time in life we spend trying to “win people over?” It could happen in a job interview. Or a romantic pursuit. Or in the quest for a sale.
After 22 years in the sales training business, I conclude that strategy is hopeless.
A friend of mine who is also in the training business spoke to me recently about his frustration with lack of eagerness to change on the part of his clients. I echoed similar thoughts about some of the work we do.
Our conclusion was that, more often than not, adults do not ask for much advice. And if they do, they are rarely eager to implement.
So the question becomes, why is that? Everybody says they want more but do they? Anybody says they want to improve but do they? The world is full of bad news about underemployment, unemployment, the economy, and prospects for future jobs, yet are we really interested in changing ourselves?
The answer to those questions typically is: NO.
My sense is that the answer to those questions runs much deeper. Perhaps deeper that I have the words for in a column such as this. But what the hell – let’s give it a shot.
Most of the readers of this blog have very few Third World problems, like can’t find anything to eat, or are being pursued by rabid hyenas. Most of our problems are of a much higher order.
Consequently, we all live life in a comfort zone. Yes, things could be a little bit better but I don’t fear for my life every day like if I lived on the Serengeti. So we have to look to other areas for our inspiration and motivation and grit.
I think an obvious place to look is by asking the question, “Why are you here?” What is it you are put on the face of this planet to be – or to do? Why are you in the business you’re in? Why do you have the life you have? What is your story anyway? What is a message or cause you’re willing to fight and die for?
By answering some of these questions I think we get to the root cause of why so many of us hate change.
I had this very conversation last week with a client. He sells a product that represents an enormous value to customers. But his sales are way off. He says he really believes in the value of what he sells but I see actions that don’t coincide with that claim. He is content to make cold calls and wait until Web leads come in.
Here is what I said, paraphrasing: “God gave you a voice to go use. He put experiences into your life that could benefit others. He gave you the opportunity to represent a product that actually helps people make better decisions in their business life which will coincide with more success in their personal life. You have all this – yet you refuse to do anything other than make cold calls and sit around and wait on leads to come in. Is that the best you can do? If you were given six months to live, is this the way you would spend those six months – waiting on web leads and making cold calls?”
“Of course not. You would get out and hustle. You would show a little grit. You would offer to speak at clubs where your customers might hang out. You would do everything you could to get this high-value solution into your customers hands. But the reason you don’t do that is because you’re in your comfort zone. If people buy, fine. If people don’t buy, fine. If people hear about it, fine. If they don’t, that’s fine too.”My question to him is: “Is that the best you can do?”
It reminds me of a scene in Walk The Line (story of Johnny Cash with River Phoenix). Cash has shown up for an audition with legendary producer Sam Phillips. After 1 minute of play, Phillips stops him cold.
Sam Phillips: Mr. Cash, we’ve already heard that song a hundred times. Just like that. Just… like… how… you… sing it.
Johnny Cash: Well you didn’t let us bring it home.
Sam Phillips: Bring… bring it home? All right, Mr. Cash, let’s bring it home. If you was hit by a truck and you was lying out there in that gutter dying, and you had time to sing *one* song. One song – that people would remember before you’re dirt. One song that would let God know how you felt about your time here on Earth. One song that would sum you up. You tellin’ me that’s the song you’d sing? That same Jimmy Davis tune we hear on the radio all day, about your peace within, and how it’s real, and how you’re gonna shout it? Or… would you sing somethin’ different. Somethin’ real. Somethin’ *you* felt. Cause I’m telling you right now, that’s the kind of song people want to hear. That’s the kind of song that truly saves people. It ain’t got nothin to do with believin’ in God, Mr. Cash. It has to do with believin’ in yourself.
What about you? Are you doing the best you can do right now in giving voice to the value that you represent either personally or in your business? What’s the kind of song you’ll sing (or message you’ll send) that’ll save people?
Gives you a different perspective, doesn’t it?
If you have listened to our podcast or read this blog, you realize that the Inner Game (our internal mentality) is a big part of what we teach at Caskey. We believe that if your mind is right, then your strategy and words will be right as well.
And when all that is right, you will experience uncommon sales success.
But often, the inner game shift doesn’t come easy for people. If you’ve grown up in a house full of scarcity and restriction it’s a little bit much to expect that a person will, all at once, see the world as a place of abundance. (Especially only as a result of a trainer/coach showing up in their lives).
Moreover, if your whole life has been focused on getting what YOU want, high intent – where you are interested in getting the customer what he or she wants – is a pipe dream.
So what is it that can bridge the gap and allow you to fully adapt the fundamental shift in thinking required to change and improve the inner game – especially for sales people? It might be self-acceptance.
Self acceptance is your psychological ability to accept yourself, warts and all.
It is not conditional, based on whether you won last month’s sales contest or secured that million dollar order. It is not based on whether your manager likes you or whether you’re in line for a raise next year. It has nothing to do with what happens on the outside. Only on the inside.
And it also does not preclude you from wanting to improve yourself. There is room for both self-acceptance as you are AND the desire to be better at what you do.
So often we tend to look back at the decisions we make and the results that came from those decisions and beat ourselves up. The fact is that most of the decisions we made were done so with a certain set of assumptions and information that we had at the time we made them.
Sometimes the assumptions and information we had were wrong. But we had to make some decision. Or, how we were thinking about life and ourselves at the time we had to make that decision was off track.
But that doesn’t mean that we were bad for those decisions. In fact, I suggest, that your bad decisions and lessons learned from those are every bit as helpful to moving forward as had you chosen every right move.
In a sick sort of way the acceptance of your mistakes makes you who you are today. There is a certain amount of grit (and guts) in accepting your past foibles. It’s when you delude yourself into blaming other people that you don’t learn those lessons and you don’t accept yourself.
Finally, when you accept yourself sincerely, you will naturally become better at what you do because you accepted more of yourself in the process. If you lose a sale and blame everybody else around you for the loss you own less responsibility to create a different outcome next time. And when you do that, all possible lessons go away.
We start sales training classes with a very simple question: “What is the intent of a salesperson?” Almost everyone misses it. They say:
Your intent is no longer to go out and get deals. Your intent should be to help the prospect identify, reveal and fix his/her problem, even if he/she decides not to use you to get it fixed. Read more
To say that the discussion of money is the most important part of the sales process might be an over-reach. BUT, the fact is that if you aren’t willing to embrace the conversation about money, then you will be at a disadvantage further into the sales cycle.
Why do so many people have so many qualms with talking money? Well, in this Whiteboard Wednesday, Bill Caskey deals with it head-on, discussing the problems, the causes and the solutions that await you. As with any roadblock in the sales cycle, it all begins with “the inner game.”
