A few minutes ago, I decided to take a break from what I was doing at my desk. I consciously told my body to move my chair back away from my desk, then I told my legs and arms to lift me out of my chair, and then I told my legs to transport me to the restroom.
Notice the word "decided" in the first sentence above. None of us will ever take a break from what we're doing at our desk unless we decide to do it first. The precursor to movement away from a desk is a decision made in our mind. In fact, it has to be made in our mind before we can execute the movement.
Successful selling is no different.
> We can decide to be successful or we can decide to be unsuccessful (we can also decide to be tentative, to not put in too much effort, to wait and see what happens, etc. - each will bring a different result).
> We can decide to craft an effective presentation or we can decide to wing in (which may feel good to us, but will probably result in less success).
> We can decide to improve our sales closing skills or we can keep doing what we're doing ( in which case we will almost certainly get the same result)s.
> We can decide to become a better manager by improving communications with our staff, or we can blame our staff for not getting it (a sure-fire way to lose your staff, or at least its loyalty).
> We can decide to role-play a challenging part of our sales process or we can wait to see if it comes together over time (I don't want my surgeon seeing if his skills come together over time).
> We can decide to talk to our manager about an issue that concerns us or we can decide to not do that and instead gossip about it to anybody who will listen (thereby reducing the chance that something will be done about the issue).
Life is series of decisions, the results of which will show success or failure or something in between. Becoming either a top-tier salesperson or a short-lived one is also determined by our decisions - many of them - both big and small.
What decisions, big and small, do you need to make today?
If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies that sell to consumers in all B2C sectors to increase sales by leveraging the buying potential of every prospect and shopper.