What would happen if you woke up in the morning and your first thought was, “I am never going to sell anything today. Why would anyone buy anything from me? I’ll be lucky to even survive.” You carry that thought into the shower and it sits beside you at breakfast. On the way to the office you flip on the radio and hear, “Businesses everywhere are tightening their belt. No one is spending money right now and when they do, it’s based solely on price. The key word out there now is ‘survive.'” You drag yourself up to the morning sales meeting only to hear the manager scream, “WE NEED BUSINESS! If things keep up like this we’ll be closing our doors in two weeks! We are in a fight to survive!”
Survive. There lies the problem in one solitary and powerful word. It’s everywhere you look these days. Emails and articles and speeches and seminar topics all see that word as the conduit that is going to attract attention and increase interest.
I disagree.
Even though their outlook might indeed be correct and things could get worse before they get better, I have a problem with the language, the attitude, and the tone of the message being delivered.
The Law of Attraction states that what you think about expands. Think, “I must survive. I must survive” and you will sell from a place of fear and anxiety. Just like my client, your customers will hear your subliminal message loud and clear. But what if you sang a different tune and realized that in every problem there is an opportunity? In this case, what if you took the position that you could help your clients to grow their business? Suppose you thought like a businessperson and not like a distributor salesperson. A huge difference occurs when you learn to sell ideas. Not only does it change the scope of the sales call and eliminate the price objection (yes, I said “eliminate!”), the client/prospect now hears hope, promise and opportunity in your voice. Don’t you think that’s a sales call they’d like to have, too?
Selling, thinking about, and focusing on survival are negative thoughts and result in self-fulfilling prophecies. You don’t have to be a rocket surgeon to know that thinking like that results in goose egg sales figures. You can’t control the nitwits that are throwing the “S” word around, but you can control your thinking. Your clients want to hear a positive message. They need sales. If you aren’t able to deliver it to them, neither one of you will survive. Oops!
Bill Farquharson can be reached at [email protected] or 781-934-7036.
