Success has to happen first in the five inches between your ears. Just as you hear athletes talk about ‘the mental game’, it is also true in the business development world. Your mindset has more to do with your success than almost any other single element. There are plenty of salespeople who possess extensive product knowledge, have numerous influential business contacts, are well-spoken, and have appealing personalities, yet their sales performance is average… sometimes, only marginally acceptable.
Then, there are salespeople who have just enough product knowledge to get by, have few business contacts, don’t always articulate their thoughts in the most artful manner, and don’t have particularly sparkling personalities, yet their sales performance ranks in the top ten percent.
How can that be?
Success in sales, or in almost any endeavor, is not simply a product of one’s talent, education, personality, or contacts (although, those elements can surely help), but rather the result of one’s attitude—the natural tendency to have a positive outlook and maintain positive expectations.
It’s more than just being able to see the glass as half-full rather than half-empty. It’s the ability to see possibilities, coupled with the resolve to take the required actions to turn those possibilities into realities.
Some people will view a challenge, and after analyzing the positive and negative aspects of it, choose to focus on the positive. They see possibilities and envision success. The more they focus on the positive aspects, the stronger their belief grows about their ability to successfully meet the challenge. They press on, regardless… and they succeed.
Others will view the same challenge and focus on the negative aspects—all the reasons (real and imagined) that the challenge can’t be met successfully. They only see limitations, and envision only failure. The more they focus on the negative aspects, the stronger their beliefs grow about the improbability of successfully meeting the challenge and the futility of investing any effort in its pursuit. They give up, or at best, make a half-hearted effort… and they don’t succeed.
Your success is nothing more (or less) than what you envision it to be and your determination to act in a manner consistent with that picture. If success has eluded you thus far, perhaps it’s time to change your picture, and then press on.
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