As sales people we sometimes demotivate our own selves by telling bad stories. That can be paralyzing. It can also color our decisions and conversations.
Fair Warning: STOP reading here if you are a fully confident person who never doubts yourself. This will just feel like alien-speak to you!
Usually our story goes something like this ”Gosh, George seemed so interested in working with me, and now he’s not calling me back. Guess he didn’t like the price… or the timing… or, gulp, me!” Cue a bit of whiny music here. But it’s often not about us – it’s about them – shocking idea for a sales person right?? Turns out George’s mother got sick, or his prospect hit him with a hard deadline. Our job is to re-presence George to the tremendous value he’ll get, to the vision he saw about how his life could be better if he signed on with us.
I was reminded of this today when a former client called today. Guess I’d kind of given up on hearing from him. Felt a bit like a stalker. But I felt so connected to this guy, and really just wanted to find out how things had been going with him. After a few months (yes, months) of occasional calls and emails with no response I had a storyline going about how disappointed he was that he had ever worked with me, must have woken up one day and realized what a waste of money it had been, or, maybe I’d said something that last phone call that was too confrontive. Wrong wrong wrong. Happy face!! It was all about the project he’d been buried by. And the best news – because I picked up the phone with a smile on my face and banished my stories – he’s coming back as a client as soon as we can work out the details!
Watch out for those stories! Save the scary stuff for your next campfire.
