8 Habits That Could Be Stopping You From Selling Effectively

At a time when there is low consumer demand and low spending going on, evidence still shows that huge deals are closed even in such times. Even in economic recessions, great salespeople still successfully activate buying desire in even the most prudent prospects and close deals consistently. How do they achieve this feat and maintain their profit margin even in tough times? They stop doing the following:

1. The Wrong Mindset
This is the root cause of poor performance by a lot of people. This must be addressed first, if not, there will be no progress. I hear people say things like, “the market is dry”, or “I’m not a natural salesperson,” this is equal to saying, “Making money is not natural to me.”
The road to consistent peak performance is using your mind right, using the tool of your imagination to influence the sales process. Your life is already being influenced and controlled directly by your thoughts so this isn’t anything new. The only issue is, you need to take back control of your life by intentionally taking control of your thought life.

2. Poor Choice Of Words
Watch your words. Your words have greater impact on you than your circumstance. What you goggle into your brain is the search result it will produce. If you say negative things, you will attract negative results but if you form a habit of speaking positive words into your sales process, money will find you. Before you head out every morning, say things like, “there’s a lot of money out there and I’m going to find it,” instead of negative comments like “there is no money in this country. Nobody wants to buy my product.”

3. Poor Work Ethic
In other words laziness. When you assume a new sales or business role the first thing is to use the law of 100 which involves contacting 100 people within the next week to talk to them about your product. This will help you breakthrough any initial fears of rejection and get the awareness of your product into the market. Another aspect of poor work ethic is broken focus. When you’re following up, be following up; when you’re prospecting, be prospecting, not doing these and calling friends or hanging out on Social Media.

4. Inability To Negotiate Based On Value
A lot of people think their products or services don’t sell because of price. Price is never a major factor unless the prospect is not in your income target market.

What is price? Price is simply a perception of value and everything counts in creating perception. No one knows what creates the perception of a prospect because no two prospects are alike. Therefore pay attention to every detail of your business. Your appearance, business cards, brochures and other instruments of your business must always look neat and clean.

5. Losing  Existing Business
It is easier to get repeat business from existing clients than to acquire new ones so this is not the time to lose clients to your competition. Invest in your current clients by calling them and letting them know that you are standing with them as a trusted advisor even in tough times. This is called building Relational Capital.

6.  Failure to Get referrals
A lead is different from a referral. If a person gives you a contact to call, it’s a lead because you have to reach out to the person, build trust and close a sale but a referral is a lead plus a guarantee of satisfaction from a client. This means the client will contact the person in advance to let them know that they’ve enjoyed your product or services and would want to recommend it to them.So you can get leads from anywhere but get referrals effectively from only satisfied clients. Never be shy to ask for a referral from your clients!

7. Fear of Failure
In harsh economic times there is a tendency to hear a lot of comments about the economy, especially when you want to elicit a buying desire from a prospect. The discomfort of hearing a NO is something a lot of people run away from. For this reason alone, a lot of people hide in their shell, look for time wasting activities and avoid doing the important things to make money. This is because they’ve associated NO to mean failure, rejection or inadequacy.

Why? Negative emotions are often stirred in people when they hear NO because of their childhood. Whenever our parents said NO to us as children, it usually meant we were doing something wrong so we had to stop it or we were being refused something we wanted. Hence, at a subconscious level most people have associated NO to mean something negative. On the contrary, NO is a good word.

As a sales person (which everybody is) you will need to change these associations of failure, rejection or inadequacy linked to the word NO. NO is your greatest opportunity. Get used to the word, NO. In the alphabet, N appears ten letters before Y, so don’t be bothered if you hear more than ten NOs before you hear a YES. Just keep at it, the YES will show up.

You may not qualify to hear a YES until you’ve heard your fair share of NOs. So, hurry! Find your NOs

Mary Kay Ash, the business woman behind Mary Kay products, said when she opened her first store in a mall, she practiced what she called the 2-feet approach: she spoke to anyone who came 2-feet close to her about her cosmetic products. Let this be your attitude when looking for clients this week; even in the face of seeming rejections talk to as many prospects as you can about your product then you will make more money.

8. Doubting Yourself
Do you doubt yourself? Never do, rather, sell your abilities to yourself daily by speaking to yourself. This releases your true potential at every point in time. In addition to selling your abilities to yourself, brag about what you can do at every point. Chances are you will deliver. Believe in your abilities and talk about it. Never shy away from telling people about your products/services and your ability to deliver. I am the best at what I do!  Are you the best at what you do? You better say you are, not necessarily on a roof top but to yourself. If you don’t think you’re the best, the world will never see that you are. The highest earning in your industry or market are not necessarily the best people but those who think they are the best. So tell me, are you the best?