Sales training for sales professionals and entrepreneurs to improve sales performance
How you think about sales can significantly impede or improve sales performance. For example, if you subconsciously believe that it is a dodgy profession, this paradigm will sabotage any efforts you make. Your conscience will make asking for an appointment or order feel dirty. At best, you may force yourself to make cold calls, but it will require enormous amounts of emotional energy.
By contrast, a positive relationship with selling will drastically improve sales performance. Doing so will make selling fun, purposeful, and worthy of excellence. You will sell out of conviction rather than out of obligation. Does this sound like the kind of selling you’d like to do?
The Mindset Shift
Today, I will share with you a subtle but powerful mindset shift that will transform your results. Don’t be fooled by its simplicity, as the power lies in the strength of your beliefs. Here is the principle:
“Selling is giving”
Let me reiterate – this principle is given strength by your level of conviction. You need to believe in your heart-of-hearts that you are doing a favour for people by selling. This means truly understanding the value of your product. Further, you need to understand the value that people place on professional sales professionals. The initiative, care, and knowledge that you have is inherently useful to your clients!
Here are three reasons this belief is so powerful, and how it will help improve your sales performance:
Giving improves your self-image
You are naturally a generous person. How do I know this? We all inherently are. We all feel greater satisfaction serving and helping other people than taking from others. Have you ever wondered why so many people want to have children? If you are already a parent, you will know intimately the sacrifices necessary to raise offspring. There is no conceivable way that a child can ever repay the debt owed to their parents for raising them in a loving home.
Constantly thinking of ways to contribute to clients will improve sales performance by fashioning a powerful self-image. We feel good about ourselves when we give to others. Selling with this in mind gives our work purpose. This in turn, increases internal motivation. You will sell more when you firmly believe that you are offering great value to prospects.
Giving makes you more persuasive
When you firmly believe that your product and service is valuable, your sincerity will shine through. People are very receptive to true intentions. If you believe you are trying to take something from your prospects, you will speak nervously. Your words and body language will reek of incongruence.
Conversely, if you truly think you are doing a favour by initiating sales conversations, your speech will be compelling. You won’t be afraid to challenge your prospects to take action to solve their problems. You will boldly ask for the order, knowing it is in their best interests to buy. I’ll never forget listening in on a sales call where the consultant crashed through his prospect’s objections, fully knowing the consequences of inaction. He could only accomplish this because of the power of his “why”. You can improve sales performance by making giving part of yours.
Giving encourages reciprocation
Ingrained into human psychology is the need to reciprocate when someone is kind to us. With this mindset shift, you will always give first before expecting anything in return. This rule applies in almost every commercial and personal relationship. When ordering food at a restaurant, they first serve the food, and then you pay for it. If a man wants to date a woman (or the other way around), they take initiative by doing something nice for the person. Mind you, not everyone will reciprocate, but you will only receive if you first give.
The way this can improve sales performance is simple. If you are calling offering something of value, you are eventually going to come across someone who appreciates it and will give back by buying. Your conversion rates will be significantly higher at every part of the sales process if you just keep on giving!
Take Action
Remember that sales is ultimately about giving, not taking from others. I would like to encourage you to focus on how you contribute to others. Read your testimonials and speak to your happiest clients. What was their life like before you intervened, and after? Bear in mind how your product brought far more value than the price you charged. It will improve sales performance by strengthening your self-image, making you more persuasive, and encouraging people to reciprocate.
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Sales Ethos is the only provider of sales training for introverts. We also provide sales coaching, sales process consulting, and sales training in Melbourne & Adelaide.