9-5 Positivity

We could have written a whole book about the importance of attitude and how your attitude affects everything you do. In selling a positive attitude is a must!

Having a positive attitude means being optimistic about situations, interactions and yourself. People with positive attitudes remain hopeful and see the best even in difficult situations. Positive thinking is essential and is a contributing factor, possibly a deciding factor of your success. It is so much better to try to build and maintain a life that will keep you consistently happy. Feeling like a 1 on Monday and feeling like a 10 on Friday is not healthy or sustainable. You build consistency by establishing what your true goals are. Realise that what you are doing now should be propelling you towards achieving your goals.

For example; if one of your dreams is to have a once in a lifetime holiday to Las Vegas in an amazing 5 star hotel, eating at some world class restaurants, going to see one of your favourite musicians perform, and having a nice chunk of cash to spend at the casinos then you need to have this in your mind all the time. The more specific you can be, the more vivid a picture of your goal you can create in your mind. Having down on paper that you want to stay in the Fountain view King room at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, which is £351 a night, is so much more powerful than just thinking ‘I want a holiday to Las Vegas’.

Mapping Your Dreams

Mapping out your goals and dreams in such a specific way means they are much easier to imagine and, therefore, constantly remember. In the same way that a common technique to improve your memory is to ‘flesh-out’ whatever you’re trying to remember (A bright red, heavy wool coat with large round mother-of-pearl buttons is easier to remember than a red coat).

Once you can imagine your goals in this way you won’t find yourself constantly trying to search for motivation because it will always be there in the back of your mind. For example; ‘every 5 sofas I sell buys me a meal at an incredible restaurant’, or ‘if I can sell 3 kitchens this week that pays for one more night at the Bellagio’. Starting from the ground up in this way is crucial because it will prove ineffective if you have to spend an hour out of each day trying to motivate yourself, telling yourself in a vague way that you ‘need the money’.

Sit down now and list your top 3 medium term lifelong goals, making a clear step-by-step plan on how you will achieve them. You will notice that a positive attitude will come simply from writing these goals out! Imagine how good it will feel every day when you know that the harder you work the closer you move towards reaching them.

A Positive Attitude in Sales

Your attitude is influenced by the thoughts and words that you tell yourself (e.g. This customer is a ‘tyre-kicker’, meaning we believe they’re going to be wasting our time). The thought that the person you are selling to is not serious, dictates that you will not be serious; your behaviour influences their behaviour.

We already know that how we feel influences how the customer feels, through body language, our tone, our expressions, etc. The things that we feel will be communicated to the people we communicate with, in one way or another; if we feel convinced with our product or service then we will feel much more confident convincing the customer. Other things that influence our attitude are the pressure we or others put on ourselves, this then manifests itself as desperation. The reverse is true when we are happy and doing well, we feel under less pressure, come across relaxed and confident with the customer and guess what? WE SELL MORE! Tips for creating and maintaining a positive attitude are… 

Tips for creating and maintaining a positive attitude are;

• Believe in your product/solution.
• Trust in yourself.
• Believe the customer is a buyer.
• Tell yourself that this is going to be a great sale.
• Choose and use positive language (especially the words in your head!)
• Associate with positive people and get rid of negative influences.
• Frame every lost sale as a learning experience and ask for feedback.
• Ask for feedback on every successful sale.

For more tips on how to improve your sales performance follow our LinkedIn page and download our ultimate sales guide.