Are you wanting more sales? Most professional sales persons will answer "Of course" and may be thinking "What a stupid question?" So why are your sales not where you want them to be?Did your excuse withdrawals, no I mean your thoughts, turn to:
- Bad economy?
- Bad time of the year?
- My prices are too high?
Years ago I read about some salesmen in the late 1900's selling electric generators to farmers who still did not have electricity. Now is the time to stop the excuse withdrawals and explore why you must add to your emotional bank account.
One of my clients shared with me that she determined that her daughter needed to attend a private military school which would cost her $100,000. As a widowed and consequently single mother, she wanted to give her daughter the necessary self leadership skills to be successful in life. The local school, even though good, would not help her daughter. So, she quit her job, applied for a potentially high paying commission based sales job that she truly did not have the experience, but her emotional determination allowed her to be successful. She then went on to earn a salary 3 times her past one and achieve her goal.
What this client did was to add to her emotional bank account. She kept adding emotional reasons why her daughter needed this expensive education. And yes, now 10 years later, she said the investment was well worth it.
Human beings are emotional creatures. They buy because of the desire, the want and justify the purchase because of the need. The automobile industry is one of the best examples. A no thrill, plain car gets you from point A to point B just as well as a luxury one. Yet, if people only bought from a needs prospective, luxury cars would not be sold.
Many sales people understand that they must emotionalize the sales process for their prospective customer, but fail to emotional the same process for themselves. If truly want to increase sales, then build up your own emotional bank account. Your emotional bank account will hold all the reasons for securing the gain to increase sales and avoiding the pain if you do not win more sales. Sales Coaching Tip: If you sales coach does not have a process to help you emotionalize the whys of your behavior and you are not getting the results fast enough, you may wish to talk with him or her.
Take a piece of paper and fold it down the middle (vertically). On the left side list all the "why pains" for not realizing your goal to increase sales while on the right side list all the "why gains" for achieving your goal. Then start writing. Make no judgments if what you write sounds silly. This is for you and only you.
I have one executive sales coaching client who literally had to list at least 20 items in both columns before taking action. However, once he did embrace this process to emotionalize his behaviors, he doubled (17% new growth) his historical average sales growth percentage (7-8% annual growth) and has maintained that growth for 5 years.
Finally, keep your withdrawals (excuses for not winning more sales) to a minimum. Negative emotions can quickly deplete your bank account. Please note, an excuse is different than a "why pain."
Remember, sales is an emotional process for both the buyer and seller. Keep your emotional bank account strong and you will increase sales.
Would you like to win more sales? Are you tired of coming up short with your monthly, quarterly or annual sales goals? Would you like to stop bleeding all the dollars from poor attitudes to unhappy customers? Then you may discover a possible solution through Triage Business Planning action plan where you can become one of the few to change and realize business success instead one of the many who continue to fight change and ultimately die.
Leanne Hoagland-Smith, Chicago Sales Coach, helps small business owners to C Level executives from Chicago to Indianapolis to worldwide who are truly tired of struggling to unlock the sales and business results that they want. Call 219.759.5601 to schedule a free business coaching training or sales coaching strategy session to begin to quickly unlock tomorrow's solutions today.
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