A positive mindset can help your sales strategy

Author
Fay Daniels
Marketing Manager - Contracts | Business West
10th March 2020

Every business relies on sales of its products or services to be successful, but how long is it since you looked at your own sales strategy and ensured you were getting the most out of your sales activities? Jeremy Grainger, who has been a top salesman for blue chip companies such as GSK, MSD, Lundbeck and The Medical Defence Union, shares his thoughts.

Your current sales strategy may be something you’ve built up over many years, through training courses and varied experiences and will likely work for you to some extent. 

Your mind will be full of knowledge of how to close a sale, which is very much the frontend of sales but have you ever thought about the backend of the process too?

Let me explain! Think of yourself as a computer, where the front facing part of you, the you as others see you, is your frontend, and the combination of all the working programs stored in your memory. This is where you process, use all your previous learnings/programs, know the differences of features, benefits, customer needs and objections, and sell using this knowledge. 

Then there is the backend, the often overlooked internal part of you - your state of mind, your own hard drive. This can be affected by the contents of the “programs,” themselves, and why you might have been taught the ins and outs of selling, but not the subtler soft skills of being a successful salesperson. 

To be a successful salesperson how you come across to your potential customer is of vital importance to get right. 

You’ll regularly hear the phrase “people buy from people,” which I truly believe, and has been proven time and time again throughout my own sales life, and this very important part of the salesperson is directly affected by the hard drive: your state of mind at the point of the pitch, call, or meeting. 

Coming across as a relaxed, enthusiastic and positive sales person is the way to go. Portraying yourself in that way comes directly from having a positive state of mind to that sales call or meeting. 

There are many ways of getting yourself into a positive state of mind, which can come across in an infectiously positive way to your customers. Always having a plan b of getting something out of the interaction is one simple way of reducing the pressure of getting a “close,” which can greatly help you coming across as at ease when you’re selling. No one likes the pushy seller, so being confident that even if you can’t get the deal at the this time of asking, you will gain something, and planning for what that something will be, will help pave the way to future success. 

No matter how good your sales skills are, you will not successfully close every time, so it’s vital that you are aware of that, and can best manage that scenario. 

Getting the backend, (your hard drive/state of mind) right in the sales process is exceptionally important, and can turn a “no,” today into a “yes,” in the future.  

 

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