King on Staying With It

 

“If you can’t fly, run. If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl. But by all means, keep moving.

– Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968)
American civil rights leader
Nobel Peace Prize winner

Sometimes, if we don’t have success after repeated attempts to do something, we can lose confidence and eventually give up trying. It’s called “learned helplessness” (we learn to be helpless).

Sales check: Any areas where you and your team have stopped trying (or try, but with little commitment) because prior repeated failures and/ or a perceived inability to succeed has trained you not to try? In prospecting and customer contact efforts? In motivating and improving team attitudes and cooperation? With customer care improvement initiatives?

If so, what can you start doing today to minimize any “learned helplessness” that may have set in?

Another thought on embracing the objections of your prospects and customers…

Right now and over the next several weeks, position in your mind the regular objections you hear as not only an inevitable step to bringing in more business, but also a positive step. Objections confirm a level of need or desire for your product or service and help you better determine the next steps you should take in a sales process. For the prospect, it’s your responses to the objections that help validate or support their buying decision.

This is the reason the responses to your top objections (those you and your team hear most often) must be planned and prepared with a professional’s level of attention.

The keys… Appreciate. Validate. Be direct.

Curie on Loving the Challenge

 

“I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy.”

–Marie Curie (1867–1934)

Polish-born French physicist and chemist

two-time Nobel Prize winner

Embrace the objections of your prospects and customers.

Right now and over the next several weeks, position in your mind the regular objections you hear as not only an inevitable step to bringing in more business, but also a positive step. Objections confirm a level of need or desire for your product or service and help you better determine the next steps you should take in a sales process. For the prospect, it’s your responses to the objections that help validate or support their buying decision.

This is the reason the responses to your top objections (those you and your team hear most often) must be planned and prepared with a professional’s level of attention.

The keys… Appreciate. Validate. Be direct.

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Nightingale on Constructive Discontent

“Were there none who were discontented with what they
have, the world would never
reach for anything better.

–Florence Nightingale (1820–1910)

English pioneer of modern nursing

No one really cares. (NORC)

Prepare with that in mind and you’re more likely to create something wonderful… your opening statements, your responses to the standard objections you hear, the follow-up voicemail messages you leave, the email responses you send, the reasons you give for why someone should buy from you.

It’s not that your prospects and customers shouldn’t care (or never care). It’s about earning their attention.