Entering the negative zone

All seasoned salespersons would be familiar with the tenet: “The best time to call on prospects is immediately after you have closed a big deal or ended the year on a high”.  

The moment you win a big contract you’re excited about the achievement. If the sales cycle before the close has been onerously long then the celebrations are even bigger. You believe that your hard work, discipline, and perseverance finally paid off rich dividends (literally speaking).

And if you’re like a lot of other salespeople, you would get into the arena of complacency.

Procrastinated action or inadvertent inaction arising out of complacency waters the tree that bears the fruits of consequential negativity. That’s where positivity and its role in ensuring success as a salesperson lies.

Entering the positive zone

Positivity is important to ensure sales success because –

1. The eagerness and enthusiasm in your voice travels: The world including your stakeholders can hear the zeal in your voice. Think about you talking to someone on the phone that sounds incredibly unhappy or tired? Even though you can’t see that person’s face, their mood travels and exhibits itself through the phone. If you would rather not talk to a good friend when he/she is in a bad mood, why would you want to talk to a salesperson that sounds unhappy? Smile a bit when you first call a customer and you will see that he or she will respond more openly to your call.
2. Moods infect your colleagues: Let’s admit it. Being a salesperson is tough. You deal with rejection and missed opportunities more than you would care to admit. It will help to inject a booster shot of positivity into your working situation and your colleagues will thank you for it. It takes a lot more motivation to be productive when the chips are down. Your enthusiasm is required more so when your team mate walks into the office and grumbles to you about how badly they want it to be Friday already. Lighten the mood on the phone with your prospects and with your colleagues so you can all hit your sales targets.
3. It releases Endorphins: Endorphin (the happiness hormone) is a Cortisol (the stress hormone) killer The more positive you are, the less stressed you tend to be. You probably didn’t realize it at the time but another reason why that one particular call was successful because you weren’t stressed about your sales numbers. You were able to be a sales consultant* and talk through your company’s offering and patiently listen to your client without being a pushy advocate*. A positive outlook translated to a less stressful situation. It’s a good idea to include activities in your daily life that release the Endorphins.
4. Enables you to be “present”: A positive outlook allows you to be “present” in the situation rather than just showing up. Be present in your office and in your sales role to make a long term career. Don’t just show up in office to merely save your job. And a career is a marathon, not a hundred metre sprint. When you feel positive you feel productive. When you feel productive it becomes easier to break your Goals* into Key Areas* and Key Areas further into Tasks* thereby enabling you to take incremental steps toward reaching your Goal. If you are making a monthly plan and your Goal is to make 100 calls to both cold and warm prospects in one month and if you are positive, then you tell yourself to break the Goal into daily Tasks. On the other hand, if you start the month by feeling negative and demotivated, you get caught in the web of thoughts of “How am I going to get to 100 calls?” or “my team mates don’t make 100 calls in a month, so why should I do it”. Begin the month and the days by focusing on positive thoughts so that larger Goals can be broken down into achievable Tasks
5. Encourages you to keep networking: the process of building rapport with others by focussing on similarities is called networking. Networking is an investment in Human Capital. Just like any other form of investment, when the sentiments are positive, the investments become more attractive. When all other material investments fail the investment in human capital yield return. Being positive acts as a spur to cast your web of network from which you can reap returns for a lifetime.

* to know more about these terms you are encouraged to join InspireOne’s workshops on Consultative Selling and Time &  Performance Manager