As sales teams rapidly reinvent themselves, their skills, activities and the way they sell, the real transformation needed to achieve your goals starts with not just changing, but expanding your thinking. There’s always more than one perception. Here are eight paradoxes that will widen your peripheral view around how the top sales gurus think around selling, cold calling and prospecting for new business to win more sales in a volatile, uncertain marketplace.
Embrace Dualities and Surrender EITHER-OR Thinking
Beliefs precede experience. How you think is what you get. What you focus on grows.
These are some of the mantras I share with my clients when it comes to attracting or creating what they want most in their life, to focus on what they DO want, not what they don’t.
Therefore, the most effective way to evolve, achieve what matters most to you, and become who you want to always start with the way you think, about yourself, life and the experiences throughout your life.
Most people are “either-or” thinkers. That is, it’s either one way/truth or the other. What if you can embrace more than one way of thinking, mindset or belief, simultaneously, even if they’re seemingly opposite or contradictory?
There are many things and processes that are right or wrong, good or bad, and have a right and wrong way to do it, whether it’s around the law, safety, education, parenting, policy or compliance. However, when it comes to coaching, managing and selling, there is often no black or white, right or wrong, good or bad, better or worse.
In fact, two conflicting or opposite believes can co-exist at the same time.
Here are eight of the top paradoxes of prospecting that make prospecting even more challenging, while simultaneously making your prospecting efforts easier and more effective than ever. (Another paradox!)
Once you embrace these paradoxes, you’ll notice how these contradictions will provide you with a more creative, innovative mindset and a new competitive edge. This an expansion around your line of thinking is something that no other marketing piece, feature or benefit of your product or service could achieve. A champion mindset that wins more sales.
The Eight Paradoxes of Prospecting
1. You want the sale (appointment, demo) but you must detach from the outcome and have no expectation since the sale is not the initial goal of prospecting.
2. You want the prospect to say “Yes” to take the next step in your sales process but you have to qualify them first to see if there’s even a fit worth pursuing.
3. You want the prospect to buy from you but must learn to give value unconditionally, whether or not they buy or meet with you.
4. You want to deliver and push through your presentation but you must get the prospect’s permission even before you present.
5. You need to keep your eye on your objective while staying in the present moment during every prospecting conversation.
6. You want to make more money and achieve greater success in your career but you have to make the sales process about the prospect, instead of you, in order to do so.
7. You want to sell to each prospect you speak with but need to qualify them to see if you even want them as a customer. (Remember, if you want to build a business or career you hate, just find the people to work with who you just can’t stand.)
8. You want to lead with solutions, your presentation, solution, and your answers, but you need to lead every conversation with questions to best seek to understand every prospect’s point of view, needs and objectives.
Let’s face it. We know that the ultimate objective of your prospecting efforts is to sell more, drive revenue, serve your customers deeply, achieve business and career goals, and boost your income.
However, to achieve this, it goes beyond your activity, skill development, and technology. The real transformation in performance and success begins with widening your thinking for the better by expanding your peripheral view around what can be possible when you think outside of the self-imposed limited way of thinking what can or can’t be done.
If you can embrace the dualities of these paradoxes, you now have the opportunity to respond to each prospect in a healthier, more innovative, creative and enjoyable way.
What do you think?