A paradigm shift
Sales success is a goal many salespeople pursue on a daily basis. For our look at success, I want to examine a paradigm shift that has to happen in sales. This same change can carry over into whatever area of your life you are seeking to be successful in.
Normally, when you are hired for a sales position, you are sold a lot of theories like this; “You have to have a positive mindset to be successful in sales, you need to make cold calls every day to be successful, you have to memorize this presentation, learn this sales script, talk to everyone about your product and if you do these things you will have a lot sales success “. Then you are shown the best salespeople and told that you can be just like them if you do the things they have taught you. Many sellers believe this and most end up failing. Why?
Because what successful people do to be successful and what the new salesperson is taught to do are two different things. The evidence of this is when you question top salespeople and find that they are doing next to nothing that new salespeople are being trained to do. This total disconnection between activities that produce results and activities that produce activity is not the same.
There needs to be a paradigm shift in the way success is taught and in the way it is modeled for those who want to be successful. In real estate, the focus on renovating a home tends to rely heavily on repairs. You watch a lot of the flip shows and they spend most of their time reviewing the demolition, choosing new countertops, kitchen tiles, etc. However, the real key to changing a property is buying it at the right price so that you can sell it at the right price. Any seasoned investor will tell you “you make money when you buy real estate, not when you sell it.”
This is how change should happen;
• Analyze exactly how success comes into play: In sales, what is the successful person doing that is doing it? It is not the fact that they make calls; who they’re calling Successful agents don’t spend most of their time calling cold leads. They focus on warm and warm leads. They focus on the people who are likely to hear a presentation of your product.
• Imitate to new salespeople what successful agents are doing – Once the real pattern develops, let new people know how things like mind positioning, introductions, scripts, etc. work. play on the successful agents. Having a skill set developed along with realistic expectations based on what top agents are actually doing will have a profound effect on the performance of new agents.
The tendency is to cling to old ways, old thoughts, and old patterns. That is why the behavior of always doing the same things never takes us to the next level. To excel, you must not only change the way you think, but you must also change the model you are using to achieve success. Make sure you see where success really comes from so that your steps to success are based on a factual model, not the lies that many of us have been told in our careers and growing up.