Episode #17: Three Important Things To Focus On In Sales

I subscribe to various sites that send you useful information, uplifting quotes etc. The following morsel popped into my inbox one morning, “People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care–Anonymous”. Wow! What a powerful reminder of the things that really matter in our interactions with others. This piece of sage advice should be metaphorically tattooed on to the brain of every single person involved in sales. Here are three things salespeople should be focusing on:

1. Don’t be like some salespeople still trotting out the product brochure and seeing if I will go for one of their goodies? You don’t like that one, well then how about this one, or this one, or this one, ad nauseam? I want “blue” but they keep showing me 50 shades of “pink”. They are playing that pathetic, failed salesperson game named “process of elimination”.

2. Show me you are focused on understanding me. Demonstrating to me that your foremost care is about my benefit? Communicating to me that, “in your success Greg, is my success”. Don’t come across with $$$$ signs in your eyes.

3. Focus on your kokorogamae (心構え). This can be simply translated as “preparedness”. Anyone studying a martial art or a traditional Japanese art (道) will immediately be on my wave length, when they hear this kokorogamae term. I would prefer to translate it as “getting your heart in order”.

This means to really hark back to your most basic principles of true intention. What we can call True North – the purity of our intention. What is the spark in our heart driving our behavior? Is it the money or is it the serving? Is it what you want or what the client wants? Is this going to be a long-term relationship or a fleeting transaction?

Salespeople need to start by searching their heart for their true intention. Why do I recommend searching your heart? Because clients can sense your motivation isn’t centered on their best interests and therefore they won’t buy from you.

So let’s ignore the outliers, those riff raff of sales and come back to the vast majority of salespeople who are not evil, just inept. Change your heart, focus on True North, purify your intentions, show you genuinely care about the buyer’s best interests before your own. If you do that every single time you meet a client, you will have get success in sales and build a power personal brand.

Keep these three things in mind: remember people don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care; show me you are focused on understanding me and Focus on your kokorogamae.