Partners in Performance Blog

How to Avoid Sales Sabotage


In a previous post I told Jim’s story about how he self-sabotaged his sales with a client. Jim was a client of mine who was already successful in sales. He had doubts that the Intentional Selling™ program could add anything new to his sales results. But he gave it a good try anyway, with much encouragement.

He ended up gaining new respect – and new sales – from his client. Had Jim continued to work under his previous assumptions about the client’s needs, without delving deeper into the discovery process, he would have missed a big opportunity.

Anytime you operate on assumptions without adequate discovery, without exploring with the client what they really need, you can  self-sabotage your sales results.

What Can You Do About Sales Sabotage?

You may think you know which assumptions you hold that creep into your thinking when it comes to selling. However, a word of caution: This is not easy to uncover and discover. Unless you devote time and effort to learn your own limiting assumptions, many of your beliefs risk remaining out of your conscious awareness, operating in the background to sabotage your best efforts.

It is difficult to discover this on your own without a structured program and process, or without a coach  to help you work your way around your own self-limiting and sabotaging barriers.

Exercise:

Write down your assumptions, your beliefs about selling, and the impact these are having on your behaviour. Then for each one, develop reframes, or alternative ways of thinking, that will help you be more resourceful and empowered in your business development activity.

The more time you spend on this, the more you will uncover deep seated thoughts and feelings.

Denis Waitley, American motivational speaker and author of the Psychology of Winning, sums it up beautifully:

“If you believe you can, you probably can. If you believe you won’t, you most assuredly won’t.”

Belief is the ignition switch that gets you off the launching pad. Unfortunately, many of our attitudes, assumptions and beliefs are buried deeply within us and held unconsciously. They have a direct impact on our levels of intention and hence our results.

It is therefore of utmost importance to become aware of how we are thinking and to consciously align our thoughts with what we want to have happen. Otherwise we can easily sabotage our efforts without realizing it or knowing why.

However, aligning our thoughts alone is not enough. Systems, structures and processes that support our selling intentions are required for sustainable success. And that’s why a clear selling process, training and coaching are a good idea. In the long run, you can save yourself a lot of time on the learning curve with professional sales training.

What do you think about these ideas? Have you had any success by reframing your thoughts? I’d love to hear from you, just leave a comment.


This entry was posted by TanjaParsley on September 13, 2011 in Intentional Selling™, Sales Process, Sales Skills, Success Mindset. Bookmark the permalink. Follow comments with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback.

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