Five Sales Mindsets That Create Success

Our number one competitor in sales is us. David Sandler said, “most salespeople beat themselves up between their ears.” The starting point for a successful day, week, month, quarter or year is our mindset. Below are a curated set of five mindsets our clients leverage to create consistent success.

1. No one invites a salesperson in without a reason – our prospects have a lot on their plate already, so they aren’t sitting at their desks thinking, “yeah, I’d love to sit through *another* SaaS demo, let’s find a salesperson to pitch me.” This mindset supports us avoiding “educating” our prospects and focusing on uncovering their reasons for inviting us in, recognized or not.
2. It’s just data – a mindset for having difficult conversations or being on the end of someone getting their emotional needs met on us. When we believe “it’s just data,” we will stay present, avoid getting triggered, and are likely to end the interaction in a good place.
3. I get paid on the information I gather not the information I give – one of David Sandler’s many rules, this mindset is a switch flip for many salespeople, especially those with a technical background. When our mindset is on “gathering” instead of “giving” we differentiate ourselves from our competition and avoid wasting time with bad fit prospects.
4. Not everyone who I speak with is qualified to do business with me –As Sandler said, “it’s okay to want the business, it’s not okay to need the business.” When our funnels are less than full, we are more likely to spend time with prospects who are bad fits. Taken to an extreme this mindset creates bullying behavior in salespeople. Combined with the “I get paid” mindset we become professionally courteous so if we do choose to say “no” to a prospect we create enough rapport so that they are open to reconnecting with us in the future.
5. Focus equals freedom – whether we follow the “top three” idea from Think and Grow Rich or a defined list of proactive activities daily and weekly by having a focus on realizing our vision through continual forward progress we make the inevitable dips or roadblocks in our path smaller and are less likely to fall of pace so by the end of the year we are celebrating instead of regretting.

There are plenty of mindsets in sales that pull us away from success. When our mindset is sorted out our proactive activities, and the techniques that drive those activities follow along effortlessly.

Until next time… go sell something.