The world isn’t always kind to you. You’ll get unexpected things hurled in your direction and the way you deal with these is crucial to your success. You have no control over other people or events that occur, but you do have total control over your reaction to them.
When you’re not following through on stuff that you know would really make a difference to your sales success, ask yourself this question, what stops me?
Find yourself a quiet place, grab yourself some paper and keep writing everything that comes into your head. When you get to a blank spot and think you’ve got it all… dig deeper, when this happens again… dig even deeper. What comes beyond the second blank spot is normally the most helpful to you.
In my experience of working with sales professionals and business owners, the barriers to success fall into two categories, regardless of the number of ways they manifest themselves.
The valley of reasons and excuses
It’s easier to blame the recession, cut’s in budgets, lack of money or any other reason you can come up with. It lets you off the hook… it’s not your fault!
Imagine you are in the land of delusion, which is about five miles west of the valley of reasons and excuses! The place where whatever you do, it’s not going to have the effect you want because of someone or something else. These excuses become the mask you hide behind to explain your lack of results.
To achieve great sales results you must put yourself at cause to be in control.
Putting yourself at cause is liberating, maybe a little scary but also exciting. More importantly, it puts you in control. Being at cause doesn’t mean ignoring the challenges, thinking positively and hoping they’ll go away. It’s about acknowledging the challenges and asking yourself, ‘so if all that is true…what action can I take to get me closer to where I want to be?’ People at cause free their unconscious minds to come up with solutions to these constraints and become high achievers!
I was working with a sales team some years ago when one of the consultants said “I can’t get my target because the company wants me to complete too much paperwork and it gets in the way”. The word ‘because’ is a big clue that this is an ‘effect’ statement. I asked him… ‘If all that’s true…what action can you take to get you closer to achieving target?’
He then came up with 3 options that gave him more flexibility, allowing him to give more focus when with his clients and prospects. The following month he doubled his sales and smashed his target.
I have a belief that keeps me very firmly at ‘cause’ and that belief is ‘I create everything that happens in my life by my actions and non actions’ So whatever happens in my life, I’m always asking myself ‘what did I do to contribute to this happening?’
If you’re not getting the sales results you want, I don’t believe you have chosen to be in this situation consciously, but I do think that where you are is the sum total of all the decisions you’ve made up to this point. Your results are from activities carried out in the past, so at times when you allow yourself to be in ‘effect’ and take your foot off the accelerator you will pay the price further down the line.
So when you hear yourself coming up with excuses, don’t fall into the trap of believing them and ask yourself ‘so if all that is true…what action can I take to get me closer to where I want to be?’
What you believe
The second barrier that gets in the way of your success is the limiting beliefs you have. Some will be expressed openly like ‘I’m not very good at networking’, ‘I can’t talk to big groups’ and ‘I’m not a sales person’. Others will be hidden away deep down. Once you get over this and be more positive, you should be on your way to actively seeking out better results.
I hope this has given you an insight into how you think, take in information and how to conquer inner barriers to sales success. You should be exploring your reasons and excuses and starting to uncover your limiting beliefs.
Now what are you going to do with all you’ve learned in this article? How are you going to ensure you use it to create more sales? Make sure that you have some action points, put time in your diary to do them. With that in place, go do them as quickly as you can, anytime NOW would be good!
Leigh Ashton is the co-founder of Sasudi.com, the world’s first online subscription-based platform that is aimed at making sales easy for Small Businesses. If you’re interested in learning more about B2B sales, or need help improving your sales, sign up to Sasudi.com for free. You’ll get free weekly tips and be the first to hear when the platform launches!
