Part One: Attitude
Results
“If you care enough for a result you will most certainly attain it.” – William James
Let’s begin to get close to your prospect and “see the whites of their eyes” by focusing on the results you’d like to attain.
The number one reason why salespeople do not achieve the results they are attempting to achieve is because they don’t know what they want those results to be!
We’ve all heard about goals, objectives and dreams. Let’s focus on the term “results” because everyone has them. Good, bad or mediocre, we all get results. Let’s begin to control them and help our prospects pull their shields down.
A client once told me the story about the “Merlin Concept.” Merlin, if you’ll remember from history and stories, was King Arthur’s confidant, mentor, and magician. Arthur would use him as his sounding board whenever problems and decisions overwhelmed him. Whenever Merlin gave Arthur advice, it came true. Arthur asked Merlin how he was able to predict the future so accurately.
“It’s not difficult,” Merlin said. “I’m living my life backwards, and I’ve already experienced the exact scenes I’ve described.”
Be like Merlin. Live your life backwards. See your life exactly as you’d like it to be. Now use the “Merlin Concept” and work backward to today, seeing exactly what you’ll have to do to be at some point in the future.
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” - Peter Drucker
Let’s take income as an example. You want to make $100,000 next year. With two weeks’ vacation, that’s broken down into $2,000 each week, or $400.00 per day. What will you have to do to make $400.00 every day? This is the activity level that you’ll need to accomplish daily. You’ve now worked backwards from your end result.
If you’d like to make one sale per day,
a) How many prospects are you going to have to ask to buy daily to make one sale?
b) How many presentations will you have to make to be able to ask them to buy?
c) How many appointments will you have to make to be able to see that number of prospects?
d) How many people will you have to talk to daily to set up those appointments?
e) How many referrals will you need on a daily basis to be able to speak with that number of people?
“The secret of success is constancy to purpose.” - Benjamin Disraeli
Now that you’ve made a decision to focus on specific results, it’s necessary to begin to establish correct actions and habits to follow-through on your steps to success. No matter what we do for a living, we all eventually get off track. We begin by letting things we have no control over, such as distractions, get in our way. We are no longer in control of ourselves; everything and everyone else is now controlling us. Don’t let this continue to happen to you. Take your life back! Don’t let these outside distractions control your success.
Again, you first need to determine what you want your results to be. These results will control your behavior, which, in turn, affects your attitude, which allows outside information to impact you. The model looks like this:
RESULTS > BEHAVIOR > ATTITUDES > INFORMATION
Your Results determine your Behavior (the way you act), which influences your Attitudes (the way you think), which allows Information to control you.
But if you first decide what results you want in your life, or at least through next year, then you can control what information affects your attitude and behavior to get the results you’ve been focused on.
INFORMATION > ATTITUDES > BEHAVIOR > RESULTS
Now the Information you choose impacts your Attitudes (the way you think), which controls your Behavior (your actions), which gives you the Results you want. (Success Motivation Institute, Waco, Texas)
Let’s use two examples of how this model might work. You arrive home after a long day, turn on the evening news and hear that there’s a major recession coming to your area. You keep hearing this information repeatedly for the next week. Will this affect your attitude? Will it impact your behavior? Will it affect your results?
Next scenario: Your boss tells you that no matter what happens this year (assuming you do your work); your income will double over last year. You hear your income will double over and over, and you believe it. Will this information from your boss have an impact on your attitude? Will it control your behavior? And will you get better results?
Even though both of these examples have opposite outcomes, they’re actually similar. Without specific results to focus on, outside information controls your outcome. Now, if my boss is going to double my income, I’ll sure let that affect me. But, in most cases, the situations and circumstances surrounding them control most salespeople. Decide today exactly what you want your results to be, and then look for the information necessary to get those results. If you don’t, the information that’s out there will control you.
Where do you find the information necessary to achieve your results? Interestingly, it begins to show up once you begin to focus on the results. For instance, let’s say you decide the number one result you’d like to accomplish this year is to buy a specific automobile.
First, go to the dealership that has the automobile you’re interested in. Find the right car, the right style, and the right color. Get into it, feel it, touch it, test-drive it. After the test-drive, hand the salesperson the camera you brought with you and have the salesperson take a picture of your new automobile. Then, make multiple copies of the picture and put it everywhere you are during the day: your car, on your bathroom mirror, in your wallet or purse, and at your desk.
What you’re doing is inundating your subconscious mind with new information without thinking about it. After a while, your conscious mind doesn’t know the difference between what’s real and what isn’t. Your subconscious believes you already have the car, and it causes you to do the things necessary to get your new automobile.
Here’s an example: Two friends are talking about wealth. The first one says that he would like enough money to buy an elephant. “Why do you want to buy an elephant?” his friend asked. “I don’t want to buy an elephant. I just want enough money to buy an elephant.”
And this is what your mind will do for you. Since your subconscious mind believes you already have this car, it causes you to act in such a way that your actions help you find ways to have your new car. But money may not be the only way to accomplish your results.
There’s an urban legend of the fellow who was looking for a late-model Mercedes. He’d scour the classifieds every morning looking for an inexpensive version of this car.
Then one morning he sees this one being offered for just $100. Believing it is a misprint, he calls the number to find the true price of the vehicle. A woman answers and tells him that $100 is the actual price of the car.
“What’s wrong with it,” he asks. “Nothing,” replies the woman. “I have to see this car,” says the fellow as he hangs up to drive over and see the car.
When he arrives at the woman’s home, he looks the car over and knocks on the door. The woman comes out, hands him the keys and they go for a test-drive. Nothing’s wrong with the car. Deciding he could take the chance, he hands the woman $100 and receives the title to the car.
“Now that I own this vehicle,” says the fellow, “why did you just sell it for $100?”
The woman answers, “My husband just ran off with his secretary,” she says. “He called the other night and asked me to sell the Mercedes…and send him the proceeds!”
This is how your subconscious mind works. Focus on your result long enough and your mind leads you to whatever you’re focused on.
Actually, the most effective generator of ideas for your subconscious mind is probably on your desk right now. It’s a sticky note. Write a result you are attempting to achieve on a number of notes and stick them everywhere you put the picture of the automobile. You can write a dollar figure, draw a small picture or write a word. It doesn’t matter what it is because your subconscious mind is working for you all of the time and will begin to help you do the things necessary to get that result.
During my years with a sales force, we put our objective on a sign above every door going in and out of the office. After awhile, nobody really consciously noticed the numbers, but they did subconsciously, and we hit the numbers more often than not because we had that secret weapon working for us.
So how important is it to develop results? It’s the difference between succeeding and failing. Once you have the results nailed down specifically, your mind begins to develop ideas to change the way you think. Once your thinking changes, you begin to act differently. And once your actions change, you begin to achieve the results you’re focused on.
But there’s an important element to keep in mind. The commitment you have toward the results you are attempting to accomplish has to be tremendously strong. This is an attitude that moves you along the path to achievement.
If you work toward a result half-heartedly knowing you probably will never achieve the result, you’re also setting yourself up for future failure. If you knock yourself out working toward achieving your objective, you’re setting yourself up for future success.
But what happens when you absolutely move heaven and earth as you work toward your result, but fall short? Does this set up another failure cycle in the future?
Absolutely not. Your subconscious mind works on the premise that you have already achieved the result you’ve set out for before you achieve it, assuming you believe you’ll achieve it before you start. So all your mind is doing is putting into place exactly what you need to do to make it happen. Your subconscious mind simply sees this as a temporary setback and not a permanent failure.
Therefore, working as hard as you can and not accomplishing your result is almost as good as accomplishing what you want, as far as your subconscious is concerned. The fact that you did everything you could is still setting yourself up for success in the future. Your future is decided by what you decide today, as long as you don’t quit and give up.
“What’s occurring is a process of ‘mental osmosis.’ The pictured ideas of what you want sinks into your subconscious. Then you will have it because it has you.” -Norman V. Peale
Copyright © 2007 Professional Development Center. All Rights Reserved.
