Avoiding Desperation In Sales By Asking "Why?"

I just finished recording a couple of segments about  the Motivation 101 process with Keith Keller of Career Success Radio.  For details on that chat, you can check out this blog post over at their Ning site.  Our conversation got me thinking, though: job seekers and salespeople have a lot in common, and they could learn a lot from each other.

One similarity in particular stood out: the need to avoid desperation and anxiety by asking “Why?”, engaging in the process and detaching yourself from specific outcomes.  Sound a little esoteric?  It’s really not.  Let me explain what I mean.

As I’m fond of saying, asking “Why?” is critical to your success because it unlocks the subconscious mind to act in your behalf in achieving your goals.  This is because it helps  identify the positive emotion behind a specific goal or outcome you’re looking for, and identifying this positive intent gives your subconscious something to move toward on a continuous basis. 

For example, let’s say you’ve got your sights set on a particular account and you’re closing in on the end of the process.  You’re pretty confident that you’re going to win the sale and, in fact, you’ve set an intention and written a specific goal about doing so successfully.  Then you find out that the prospect decided to go with a different provider.   That can be pretty devestating, especially if you’d been counting on the commission check, right?  In fact, for a lot of salespeople this kind of event is the beginning of the downward slide into the slump.  It can create a feeling of desperation to “close” the next deal at any cost, and prospects can smell that despeation 10 miles away.

How would asking “Why?” help you avoid this situation, though?  Simple.  If your goal is to win a particular sale, ask yourself why that outcome is important to you.  Your answer might be something to do with the fat commission you’ll earn as a result of the sale.  Again, ask yourself why that matters to you.  This time, the answer might be that you’ll be able to spend the extra money on that new TV you’ve had your eye on.  And again, why is that important?  As you progressively answer the “Why?” question, eventually you’re going to come to an answer that begins with “Because it would make me feel…” and ends with a positive emotion like joy, happiness, contentment, etc..  Bingo!  You’ve just foud the key to detaching from a specific outcome and avoiding desperation.  How so?

Giving your subconscious mind a positive emotion to pursue allows you blow right past the negative feelings associated with losing any one particular sale and right on to the next sale in your pursuit of, not a specific outcome, but the specific feeling behind that desired outcome.  Your subconscious knows millions of ways for you to have that specific positive emotional state, and it will drive you to get engaged in the process that it knows will eventually lead to an outcome, any outcome,  that will provide that emotional state.  This is the power of asking “Why?”! 

Knowing the “Why?” behind your specific goals lets your subconscious get really creative, and it allows you to stay focused on all the good sales habits that so often become the casualties of desperation.  Keep this in mind the next time you’re writing out your goals, and remember to include the specific desired emotional state behind the goal so you can stay engaged in the process and detached from the outcome!

 Until next time, happy sales to you!

Jerry

P.S.  I love the comments, so keep ‘em coming!  I’d love to hear your thoughts on this post.  Thanks again for reading!