What can you do today that’s going to make the biggest impact on your success tomorrow? You might think I’m referring to prospecting (well, that’s important) or getting better at your sales technique (feel free to talk to me about that!). But no, the biggest impact you can have on your own success you have to do on your own. And that’s to look after your attitude.
I’ll give you an example. There came a moment when a client of mine felt he was going to have to pack up his business. Nothing had been going right for ages. Cashflow forecasting said he would be out of cash to pay current bills within weeks (days?) and no new business had appeared for what seemed like forever. When I quizzed him it looked like he was doing plenty of prospecting. The number of Discovery meetings was down, but not by much. So, what was wrong? Had he lost the ability to do a do a good job for his clients? No, that was good, but then again he was beginning to lose existing clients too. Nothing seemed to be going right. Prospects and clients were coming up with the strangest of excuses why they didn’t want to take the next step with him.
He came to the painful decision that time was up, he’d have to give up his dreams, look for a job somewhere, cut back on expenses, hunker down and hope for better times (or retirement, whichever came first). He really didn’t care what his next prospects thought of him, what they decided to do, in fact it would probably be easier if they didn’t become clients if he was going to close the business. He then had four Discovery meetings in pretty close succession. (I told you his prospecting was OK!) And closed for a small piece of business on every single one of them!
By the way, this is a true story. So, what had happened? His attitude had changed. Nothing else was different. Same pressures, same service being sold, same everything. Apart from everything was different; his prospects weren’t feeling pressured nor picking up any nervousness nor worry from him. His service was right for them and they bought.
What can you do to change your success? Change your attitude.
How can you change your attitude? That depends a lot on your own way of doing things, but here are a few suggestions:
- Read. A great place to start is “Why has nobody told me this before” by Dr Julie Smith.
- Start a daily journal. That typically starts with a gratitude list. Contact me if you want more detail about how to go about writing a regular, quick, effective journal.
- Make a list of what you believe to be so awful in a column on the left of a piece of paper and then answer yourself as if those things were not true on the right. Suddenly you see that those highly negative things might only be what you think is true, not what is actually true.
- Like my client, tell yourself you just don’t need the business. (And mean it.)
There are lots of other things you can do to help with your attitude. For example, if you are based in Surrey, Kent, Sussex, Hampshire or Kent and you’d like to know more, contact me and I’ll give you access to my whitepaper “Personal Presence”.
Paul Glynn
Sandler trainer
