Episode #40: In The Mood For Sales?

The dark morning gloom of rain clouds, snow drifts or driving sleet can have an impact on our sales mood. We may be thinking to ourselves what a “lousy day” to have run around town juggling umbrellas, trains, taxis and bags of samples to visit clients. The next day, the rains have departed. Brilliant blue skies and a warm sun seem to say “what a beautiful day to make sales calls”. Neither comment is acceptable for the pro salesperson, because they are not randomly controlled by the weather.

These are not the only mood bear traps we need to look out for. Does your mood impact completing unpalatable tasks or conversely do they impact your mood? That proposal you have to get out but don’t want to start because it is time consuming and difficult – you even have to think! Doing the CRM, which you consider a major time waster because it feels slow, boring and to you is a lower priority item. You whine later about the lack of leads from the marketing effort, but your moodiness meant you didn’t help with the CRM did you?

Where is your sales discipline for doing the dull bits of the work? A coffee break, a catch up on email, posting something on your business social media, etc., all look a lot more appealing than this piece of tedium you are facing? The sales pro doesn’t put the reward first, they put the task completion ahead of the reward. They don’t stand in front of the empty fireplace bellowing about what they want – heat. They put the logs in there first and then they light the fire. They understand the natural order of the sales universe.

What about when buyers let you down? You find out they went with a competitor when you thought it was in the bag, they cancelled their order due to headquarter’s spending constraints or reduced the size of their purchase. Your champion inside the company has been sidelined internally, but you don’t know that. All you understand is that the next phase in the sales conversation has mysteriously not progressed and you can’t fathom why.

Just to really top it off, you have already spent the money from the expected commissions. Whoops, hero to zero in 2 seconds. What is the impact on your self-esteem, your fighting spirit, your motivation? In the rollercoaster of the sales life, we are now in the terrifying “dive” stage of the process, a white knuckle ride, without any sign of probable relief.

Living an intentional life means controlling both the head and the heart. The bigger picture makes the bump and grind of the everyday palatable, because there is a higher purpose in our life. If we are dedicated to serving then we can absorb the fluctuations in the weather, the unreliability of people, the changing fortunes of the market, the gross unfairness of the sale life. The size of our WHY in the fight makes all the difference.

What if we don’t have a strong WHY or a strong enough WHY? Well, that is going to mean trouble. We better deduce, select or create one. No WHY and sales gets real hard, real fast, real often. Sit down and think about what you want to do, what you need to do and what you wish you could do. Twenty minutes on this type of introspection will soon identify some key drivers for you. Rank them into priority order, start at the top and attach timelines to their achievement. Break them down into smaller pieces, smaller projects and then get going working them. Review the goals frequently, review your work and mini-celebrate even small progress. Most importantly of all – keep going regardless.

If we decide we will determine our mood, our feelings our orientation and not let externalities invade our feelings, we can keep doing what we need to be doing. We won’t be running for cover trying to find a million other things more appealing to do than this task in front of us. We need to keep reconnecting with our WHY and see our activities like a calling where we can help people. As Zig Ziglar mentioned helping others is how you ultimately help yourself and sales being a numbers game, the more people you help, the better you will do.

Our mood control in sales is a critical function of our sustained and consistent success. The stronger our WHY the less relevant our mood cycle. Winston Churchill has a great quote about going to from failure to failure, without losing our enthusiasm. That is a brilliant summary of what is needed to succeed in sales and in life. There are always going to be more “nays” than “yays” from buyers, so we better harden up and look to our WHY to control our moods.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

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About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.