The third de-motivator is self-doubt.
Jul
18
The third de-motivator is self-doubt. This one holds special interest for
all of us in sales. Before you entered this field, you probably mentioned that
you might to your friends and relatives. Then what did you hear?
“Selling? You’re thinking about selling? For a living? Know what that means? Fast or famine. Chicken dinner one night, feathers the next. What are you, crazy?”
Listening to that refrain a few times can plant the seeds of self-doubt in your brain, and stain your enthusiasm with fear before you begin. That fear can spur you to greater effort—or it can cause you to look for a soft spot to fall. “Okay, I’ll just give selling a try,” you tell your friends and relatives. “I’ll give it a chance. If I like it, fine. If not, big deal—I’ll give something else a shot.”
The trouble is, you hear your own words when you hedge your commitment to sales that way. Elsewhere in this book an effective method of convincing people is stated in these words: “If they say it, it’s true.” That method also works for us—for us or against us. You can’t go into sales with a give-it-a-whack, see-how-it-goes attitude without weakening your resolve to do the difficult things (like facing rejection) that must be done if you are to succeed.
Tell people you’ve decided on a career in sales. No ifs or buts. Commit yourself to success in sales. Don’t brag about all you’re going to do, but don’t excuse yourself from all-out effort either. Don’t predict your own failure and then float out to prove how good you are at making predictions.
And don’t set your sights on being average. If you do, that’s what you’ll be. When you’re new, with few or no sales yet, being average might seem like a safe and successful place to be. It isn’t. Here’s why: In most companies, one-third of the salespeople do two-thirds of the business. (Obviously, the exact figures will vary from year to year and from firm to firm—though not by much.) That’s neat for the top third, but the bottom two-thirds of every sales force must live on the income generated by one- third of that company’s sales.
That’s twice the people splitting half the money. Every time a bottom- grouper gets one dollar, a top-grouper gets four dollars. Unless you’re on the right end of this split, it’s tempting to blame company policy for this huge difference. Resist that temptation. Yielding to it blinds you to three truths that all great salespeople know: (1) management hates depending on so few of its salespeople for so much of its sales; (2) management can’t put you into the top group, only you can put you into the top group; (3) if you’re only average, you’re only making a fourth of what the top-groupers have proved can be earned in your job.
You stop being average the day you decide to become a Champion, because the average person won’t make that decision. You stop being average the day you commit to an all-out effort to win the level of success you want, because the average person never makes that commitment. After you’ve made that decision and that commitment, you’ll start handling rejection differently. When you fail to get the appointment, you don’t ask what the average sales person asks: “What did I do wrong?”
When people who refuse to talk to you come into your showroom or display area and then walk out, you don’t ask “What did I do WRONG?”
When you demonstrate or present with eloquence and verve until the prospect warmly and with love throws you out the door, you don’t ask yourself “WHAT DID I DO WRONG?”
You don’t ask that because doing so reinforces self-doubt. With enough reinforcement, self-doubt becomes negative conviction.
When you’re gripped by negative conviction, you believe that everything you do will be wrong; being wrong, everything you do will fail; therefore, you will fail. That’s negative conviction, and every sales position provides ample opportunities to catch it if you expose yourself to the virus. Negative conviction is especially dangerous to new people in sales. If they take every opportunity to ask themselves what they did wrong, they’ll repent that question an enormous number of times during their first few rnc n t h s.
What does the Champion ask whenever he or she fails?
“What did I do RIGHT?”
The Champion keeps on doing what he did right, keeps his up-attitude, overcomes the rejection, keeps on trying, and starts to win. The wins pile up until they smother any sneaky self-doubt under a pyramid of positive conviction. Most people don’t move because they are de-motivated by their self doubts, which they turn into negative convictions. From here on out, ask not, “What did I do wrong?” Dwell on “What did I do RIGHT?”
“Wait a minute,” you say. “I’m standing by the showroom window, getting a face-tan and feeling good, when this non-buyer comes in, proceeds to give me a hard time, and then walks out. Until he came in, I was feeling good. Now I’m feeling rotten. Naturally I’m going to ask, ‘What did I do wrong?’ Any fool can see that.”
Any fool can ask that question, but the Champion, the top-grouper, doesn’t leave his or her self-esteem and up-attitude lying around where any stray hard nose can stomp on it.