The mentality of master sellers

By James Olsen

ATTITUDE is everything. When I lA.was younger. I thought it was a bunch of bunkum. But the older I get, the more I believe it.

When I heard people talk about attitude, I always thought, "It's the doing that matters. Attitude won't save me if I don't do something." If you are thinking this, I agree with your thinking, but I disagree with your (and mine own old) conclusions.

If we go to a poker game where the "buy-in" is $10900, we will have to have to have the $10,000 before we can sit at the table. To successful people, the "doing" is the buy-in money to success. Of course, we have to work hard, they say, blut working hard is only the beginning. I took taekwan-do for four years. The master used to tell us, "Many think that earning their black belt is the end. Eaming your black belt only means that you are ready to begin to leam."

Hard work is the same. It is the buy-in money to success. Hard work is the black belt-only the beginning. But hard work-activity-without a good attitude won't work in sales any more than it will at the poker table or the golf course. Attitude is what will carry us to the next level. Our attitude is what will carry us through the rough spots when hard work by itself will not be enough.

If hard work is a given, what are the attitudes?

1007o responsibility. Winners take l00%o responsibility for what happens. They understand that there are things they can't control, but they have a positive denial about those things. Losers look for someone or something to blame for their poor performance. Losers blame their company's shortcomings for their lack of success. Winners understand that every company has warts; but as great sellers, we work around our company's weak points. All companies have problems, and wherever I work I see struggling sellers talking about them and I see successful sellers working right through them.

Winners divide the work into the goal. "Don't tell me how much you're going to make, tell me how hard you are going to work." What is our goal? What is our closing percentage?

Given our goal and our closing percentage, how many calls do we need to make to reach our goal? These are the questions of the master seller.

It's not about price. I ask classes I work with, "How important is price?" Invariably, they tell me it is very important. I then ask them how important price is with their top three customers. I then ask them if they have ever been the low price and not gotten the order. Their answers prove that price is not important.

Trust is more important than price. So let's start selling trust. If a customer does not trust us, it does not matter how low our price is. If price were as important as some sellers would have us (and themselves) believe, the cheapest sellers would make the most money. The opposite is truer in reality.

It's not about the accounts. "If I had that guy's accounts, I'd be a millionaire." "I can't wait 'til my account base is set, then I'll make a bunch of money." "Sure he's doing well. They give him all the good accounts." These and similar statements are misguided. I've seen sellers who are given good accounts and run them into the ground or blow them up completely.

I ask sellers to look at the big hitters in their companies. "If we took away every account this seller has, how long would it take them (the big hitter) to climb back to the top of the mountain?" This usually produces a lot of knowing looks and the class will tell me, "Not very long." This leads us to master seller mental attitude number five.

It about how we do it. It's not about the economy, the boss's favorite, luck, prices or any other deficiency our boss or our company has. It's about us and how we approach and sell our customers.

To be successful in sales in a competitive market, we will have to work hard, but working on the master seller attitudes in conjunction with hard work will make us unstoppable.