Creating Peak Sales Performance:

How to Get Up from a Let Down

If you have ever failed - you are in great company.

• According to Tom Stanley, PhD and author of the Millionaire Next Door most people who are millionaires never did well in school.
   
• Thomas Edison was told by a teacher he was too stupid to learn anything.
  
• California Pizza kitchen co-founders Rick Rosenfield and Larry Flax co-wrote a screenplay that never sold, had an Italian restaurant that went bankrupt and launched a mobile skate park that never went anywhere.
  
• Michael Jordan was cut from his high school varsity basketball team as a sophomore. 

The sales profession is a challenging endeavor. Why? Because it is one of the few professions where by its very nature you put yourself “out there” to either be accepted or denied.

A thick skin and resilient personality are important.

How can you improve your resiliency?

1. Have a long term orientation.
   
   If you see your efforts as part of a long term career perspective than you will likely not mind the bumps in the road. Not every sale is the “one to put you over” so don’t see it as such. If you have a hard time seeing your career in terms of years or decades, try looking at it a week at a time.
   
   This is a strategy that Stephen Covey has promoted for years. It’s the perspective of the week. Meaning you create two or three VERY important objectives to obtain for the week. Then when you reach those, the rest of the details will fall into place. This way you will be able to be more resilient because you will be attaining your goals, experiencing success and then not letting minor setbacks get to you.
   
   
   
2. See how many people can say “no” in a day.
   
   Ok, I’m not talking about being rude here. What I’m talking about is most people enter into sales exchanges walking on egg shells because they are afraid the customer is going to say, “No.”
   
   Flip that around. Try to get people to say, “No.” This is a mental strategy you can use with yourself to build your confidence. If you tell yourself you’re going to see how many people say no to you in a day, you will encounter and engage more people because you’ve given yourself the mental permission to fail. Look in sales we all fail. It is not the end of the world. And guess what? When you go into the day to see how many people say, “No” to you, you’ll be amazed at how many actually will say, “Yes.”
   
   
   
3. Set up a safety net; improve your skills and close more deals.
   
   Here’s another idea that can really help you work through deals. Now you don’t want to do this on every oil filter purchase but certainly with a larger sale like a motorcycle, or chrome front end it certainly applies. Set the customer up for clarifying questions before hand.
   
   After establishing a reasonable level of rapport try this:
   
   “Ok, now before we show you some motorcycles, we want you to know that your opinion matters here at our dealership. Whatever you decide it fine with us, but we just want to understand what you are thinking. So after we look at some bikes, if you find one you like and want to buy it we will ask you specifically why you decided to purchase. If you decide not to buy, that’s ok too, and we will ask you specifically why you didn’t. Would that be ok with you?”
   
   Most reasonable people will say, “Sure.” And you’ve already gotten your first agreement.
   
   This will encourage you to actually ask for the business (most salespeople don’t) and then encourage you to find out why the customer did or didn’t buy; closing the loop on your ever improving sales process.
   

People often ask me if I’ve ever failed. Are you kidding? I have not made the sale, not gotten the job, not convinced the customer, messed up the presentation and … believe it or not there are people who don’t like me.

Did it ever bother me? Yep. Does it still today? No where near as much. I move on to the next and try and learn from my successes and my failures.

There is no way that twenty years from now I will reflect back on my life and career and say, “I would have tried that but I was afraid someone would turn me down.”

If they say no to my offer, I have not lost a thing but what if they say, “Yes.”

Michael Jordan in a great Nike commercial said, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots, I’ve lost more than 300 games, 26 times I’ve been trusted to make the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over again. This is why … I succeed.”

Go ahead. It doesn’t matter if you miss. Take a shot.