Never sell yourself short

When it comes to your sales potential, you are worth of exactly what you believe you are, not a penny more and not a penny less

“You’re worth every penny!” When we hear that, we’re usually delighted to know that someone believes we’ve provided them with something valuable. Truer words were never spoken, especially when it comes to what salespeople believe about themselves. In fact, belief is so strong a factor in a person’s success that whatever you believe you can achieve, you will. Conversely, whatever (self-imposed) limitations you believe in, will be manifest, holding you back.

For salespeople, self-limiting beliefs can be career- and job-killers: “I just can’t reach the decision- maker … My company’s prices are too high … The economy is so sluggish … I keep getting voicemail … Prospects never return my calls … My proposals are only used for comparison shopping… It would take a miracle to reach my quota …”

The good news is that this troublesome thinking, when identified and confronted, can be dealt with and removed from our natural thought habits, even if only little by little. We can actually reprogram the way we think and therefore the way we act.

Productive action is the delivery mechanism of all sales success. When we clear away the debris of lies we tell ourselves (“head trash”), a path to new opportunities and higher accomplishments opens up.

Your current sales performance and income level reflect the way you perceive yourself in your business role. There’s a certain axiom in professional life that’s hard for many people to grasp. Once fully grasped, however, a new freedom to enlarge one’s scope of influence and sales performance becomes not only possible, but inevitable. The axiom is this: You are worth exactly what you believe you are, not a penny more and not a penny less.

Salespeople act in a manner consistent with what they believe about their own competency. We all have a set of records in our minds that began with our earliest childhood impressions.

Our unique life experiences leave an imprint on these records which can significantly influence our behaviors. If we’ve allowed negative feedback coming from outside sources since our childhood to taint our beliefs and behavior –therefore our habits – we need to reprogram our minds to reverse bad behavior patterns and develop new and productive habits that produce better results. Those results will ultimately match what we believe they will.

Scripting over your engrained thought patterns won’t happen overnight, but it will certainly happen when you apply consistent, daily effort.

Let’s look at how this daily positive affirmation works:

The physical action of writing down your goals (longhand) and affirming your activity plans to achieve them – every day – produces real results over time. Most people who successfully practice this use a journal. Keeping a daily sales journal of your goals, activity plans and actions leads to sustainable behavior change. This change will take some time and it’s crucial that you do not give up once you commit to the practice. 

In as few as 20 consecutive days of positive goal affirmation using a journal, most people begin to notice new thought patterns emerging that drive them to act willingly in ways they previously avoided or found very difficult. 

If you’re like most people, when you keep your daily journal affirmations fixed on developing specific new behaviors, after a month or so of consistent focus, you’ll begin to automatically think and behave differently. You’ll start to shed the “head trash” and fill your mind with the truth about what you’re really worth.

One of the keys to successful journaling is writing out your achievement goals in the present tense as if they are being actualized right now. It’s only a matter of time for your goals to materialize once you truly believe in their actual reality. 

Even if at this moment you’re held back by self-limiting beliefs, you have the power within you to break the patterns of negative thinking that limit your earnings potential. You do this by daily affirmation journaling, then thinking and acting as if you are already the person worthy of and entitled to possessing what you really want in life.

People of great accomplishments and wealth didn’t just let things happen to them. They had goals they believed in. Did they ever get discouraged? Of course, but they pressed on and actualized their goals, not by entitlement but by taking consistent goal-centered actions driven by their beliefs. 

Toby Payne, sales trainer and consultant at Sandler Training-Manchester, can be reached at 603-232-1520 or tpayne@sandler.com.