Episode #278: Four Powerful Japanese Mindsets For Sales

Sales is a battle. Not a battle with the buyer, although sometimes it feels like that when they won’t purchase from us. The war is going on inside our own heads. We have imposter syndrome telling us we are not good enough to do the job, even when we have some modicum of success. We have the reverberation of negative self talk, telling us we are useless, when we fail to meet the sale’s quota. The clients are beating us up on price, the sales manager is beating us up on results. The vast majority of the time spent in sales sees us failing, being constantly rejected, losing revenues, losing clients, losing opportunities. This is the battleground for our thoughts. This year is my 51st year training in traditional karate and so let’s draw on four mindsets which are central to success in battle.

Shoshin – the beginner’s mind

Our mindset when learning new skills is incredibly open. We are keen, flexible, adaptable and hungry to improve. We were like this when we first started in sales or when we started selling a new range of products or services for the first time. As time progressed and our knowledge improved, our mindset shifted from how much can I learn, to how little can I do for the same result. We are now looking for corners to cut, time to be saved, energy to be conserved. We are busy people, so much of this makes sense, but as part of the package we also carry our bad habits around with us. Some of those corners should not be cut, some of that time and energy should be deployed not saved.

Each financial year we start again. Let’s reinvigorate our beginner’s mind and go back to the basics of sales. Let’s purge ourselves of the barnacle like bad habits which have attached themselves over the last year. The beginner’s mind helps us to go back to zero and look at the whole picture again, in a fresh way. “Knowing what I know now, how would I do things differently?”, is a genius level question, to help us get the success we seek. Using the shoshin mindset, let’s start again and re-set our sales skills, philosophy and actions.

Mushin – the mind of no mind

In karate training, my instep would land on the side of my opponent’s temple, before I knew it. This was the product of thousands of repetitions of that kick, so that the neuron grooving was so well accomplished, the action took place without conscious thought. That is a state of mushin, which in the West we call “flow”. In sales, we know our process so well, we can guide the buyer to the right decision, without having to think what to say and when to say it. What comes out of our mouth is effortless, confident, intelligent and perfect for that moment.

Clients have precise, internal radar for risk. Salespeople who stumble and fumble for words or are not articulate, trigger flashing red warning lights and piercing sirens to go off in the buyer’s mind. The sales conversation wanders all over the place, but the professional salesperson keeps shepherding the flow back to the next stage of the sales cycle to keep the deal on track. The outside appears calm and the inside is calm too, because the salesperson is in flow and doesn’t have to scramble for what to say next. Like those many roundhouse kicks, this is the product of thousands of repetitions in role play practice with colleagues and in actual buyer conversations, such that the words appear without conscious thought.

Zanshin – the remaining mind

In Karate, the blow is delivered and then we exercise supreme vigilance, with no relaxation in concentration, remaining completely focused on the opponent. In sales, we need to stay focused on the client after the sale. The temptation though is to move on to the next client. This makes sense from an efficiency point of view, but is it really effective? If we see the relationship in partnership terms, we want to stay close with that buyer. We want the reorder, the upsell, the cross sell, the referral. None of that happens by accident or good fortune. We have built the trust and we have to stay with the client, constantly keeping in touch, rather than just moving on to the next target.

We all know it is much cheaper and easier to sell more to an existing client, than it is to go out and acquire a completely new client. Keeping in close contact with an existing client, after they have purchased, takes time and energy and we can be tempted to move on. Keep the zanshin mindset at the forefront of how you deal with buyers and the rewards are long term and well worth it.

Fudoshin – the immovable mind

One of the toughest drills in karate training is to have your back heel against a wall and then face a continuous series of attacks, one after another, from your training partners. They get a break and don’t tire, but you don’t have that luxury, as wave upon wave of lightening fast blows are rained down on you. Rejections in sales are debilitating. Five tough rejections in a row, when cold calling, sees most salespeople giving up. Your lovely client buying from your competitors hurts. People you know well, who don’t contact you when they need your product or service, buying it from somewhere else is agonisingly painful. Sales can feel ferocious at times.

We need an immovable mindset, where we won’t crack, give up, wilt or surrender in sales. Harden up everyone and keep going, no matter what. Your back is against the wall and you have to keep going regardless.

Mindset decides everything in sales. The good part is we get to choose the mindset. Consider these four Japanese warrior mindsets as metaphors for sales success – no matter how hard it gets.