What Do Your Salespeople Believe?
ONE OF THE MOST classic stories of belief systems driving actions and results is the story of Roger Bannister. He made headlines around the world by being the first person to run a mile in less than four minutes, 3:59:4 to be exact. Up until that point, people “believed” that it was physically impossible for a human being to run that fast.
But here’s where it gets interesting. Bannister’s record lasted only forty-six days because Australian John Landy beat it by running a 3:57:9 mile. And since that time, over 1,400 athletes have broken the four-minute mile.
What changed? Did great runners suddenly change their training regime? Were superior athletes suddenly coming of age? The number one thing that changed performance outcomes was the belief that running a four-minute mile could be accomplished. The number one thing that shifted was the former negative self-talk surrounding this goal. “No way this can be done” changed to “Well, if he can do it, maybe I can as well.”
Sales managers, your sales team may not be trying to run a four-minute mile. But they are trying to run a better race in sales—and many are not winning the race because of their limiting belief systems.
Some of you reading this chapter might be thinking that this belief system, positive self-talk stuff, is little bit “woo woo.”
Perhaps it’s time to challenge your belief systems.
According to research from the Harvard Business School, just uttering the three words “I am excited” in a high-pressure situation is proven to relieve stress, improve self-confidence, and lead to better performance.
Research among athletes and students shows that improving positive self-talk results in improved performance by a number of measures. Stephen Cheung, an environmental physiologist and avid Cyclo-cross competitor, conducted a study in 2016. He gave cyclists two weeks of positive self-talk training before an intense ride in a heat chamber at 95 degrees Fahrenheit. He taught the cyclists to replace negative thoughts such as “I’m boiling” with motivational statements like, “Keep pushing, you’re doing well.” This positive self-talk lengthened their time to exhaustion from eight minutes to over eleven minutes.
Sales managers devote a lot of time to reviewing sales pipelines, conducting win/loss discussions, and engaging in role-plays to improve sales results. But often, sales managers don’t help salespeople develop the skills needed to win against their biggest competitor: identifying and changing self-limiting beliefs.
When you hire a salesperson, you also hire their belief systems. They show up to your office with two briefcases. One briefcase is visible, full of business and sales acumen (see Figure 13.1).
FIGURE 13.1
The other briefcase is invisible. It’s stuffed full of beliefs a salesperson has learned—or otherwise absorbed—from parents, teachers, coaches, siblings, colleagues, and friends. Some of these beliefs serve salespeople well. Other beliefs need to be challenged and changed in order to help your salesperson achieve peak performance.
Beliefs Drive Actions
One of our clients discovered the importance of uncovering his sales team’s self-limiting beliefs. He had a salesperson on his team who was bright and funny. Clients loved him and his work. However, this salesperson wasn’t great at prospecting so the sales manager was having yet another coaching session with him on tactics and strategies to fill the sales pipeline.
My client was puzzled because he had provided this salesperson with really good training around asking for referrals. This was a natural prospecting strategy for this salesperson because of his raving fan client base. And yet, the salesperson wouldn’t ask for referrals. When asked, his usual response was, “Uh, I forgot.” After attending our sales management workshop, the sales manager tried another approach. He stopped teaching, telling, and reviewing information on asking and receiving referrals. He moved his focus to understanding this salesperson’s belief system. “What’s making you uncomfortable about asking for referrals?” The salesperson slowly replied, “In my family, asking for help is a sign of weakness. I don’t want to appear weak or needy in front of my customers.” The root cause for lack of sales execution was finally uncovered. Now the sales manager could work on the right end of the sales performance issue.
The coaching conversation shifted from teaching tactical sales training skills (Sales IQ) to working on the right end of the problem, the salesperson’s self-limiting beliefs around asking for help (Sales EQ).
You are the Chief Belief Officer. One of your many roles as a sales leader is helping your sales team believe in themselves, the company, and the products or services they are selling. Selling skills are important—but equally important is raising your sales team’s self-awareness around limiting self-beliefs that affect sales results.
That Which You Are Not Aware of You Cannot Change
Remember the movie Hoosiers, in which Gene Hackman portrayed real-life coach Marvin Wood? Coach Wood guided the Milan High School Indians to the Indiana state basketball championship and a 28–2 record in 1954. This movie is a great example of self-limiting beliefs and how one man changed an entire basketball team’s belief in themselves and their abilities.
Milan, with an enrollment of only 161 students, really had no business going so far in the state tournament. (So many people believed.) In the final game, the Indians faced powerhouse Muncie Central, a much larger school.
Wood knew his small-town team might get intimidated playing against a bigger school in a much larger arena at Hinkle Field House. They might believe they didn’t stand a chance of winning based solely on the size of their school, rather than the size of their talent.
I believe Wood used his emotional intelligence to understand his team’s mindset. He stepped into his players’ shoes, applied empathy, and really tried to understand what his team was thinking or feeling. He focused on managing his team’s mindset and beliefs, rather than running one more basketball drill.
When his team arrived at Hinkle Field House, which was triple the size of Milan’s hometown gym, he gave his players a measuring tape and told them to measure the basketball floor. They discovered there was no size difference from their home court. They had played on this size court before and they had won on this size court. He changed any self-limiting beliefs about the size of the court—and the size of the opponent—which changed their ability to effectively execute their basketball skills and beat the four-time state champion Muncie Central Bearcats. Beliefs drive actions, skills, and outcomes.
It might be time to get out your tape measure and check out what belief systems are holding your sales team back from playing the game of sales to the best of their ability.
The size of the court for your team might be:
• The size of the opportunity. “This deal is too big for me to pursue and close.”
• The size of the competition. “They are five times our size. We don’t stand a chance.”
• The size of the learning. “I’ve never been in this selling scenario before. I don’t know what the heck I’m doing.”
Devote time in your one-on-one coaching sessions to learn, examine, and increase your sales team’s self-awareness around beliefs that are holding them back in the game of sales.
Self-Limiting Beliefs about Themselves
Self-limiting beliefs are formed from repeated thoughts and self-talk. Say something to yourself long enough and it becomes a belief, a person’s truth. Open up that invisible, self-limiting briefcase and you will find a compartment filled with negative self-talk about a salesperson’s own abilities or attributes. Here are a few that I’ve heard over the years:
• People don’t take me seriously because I am a woman.
• Men aren’t good listeners because we lack empathy.
• I’m too young to call on the C-suite.
• I’m too old to learn these new digital selling tools.
• I’m an engineer . . . I’m not good at sales.
• I don’t have an advanced degree so I can’t call on doctors.
• I’m disorganized.
• I don’t have enough time to . . .
• I’m an introvert and not good at small talk . . .
• And the list goes on.
Beliefs drive the actions a salesperson will take or not take. They drive the skills a salesperson will learn and apply. Sales managers work with their sales teams designing sales activity plans. Time is invested in skill development. The problem is that a self-limiting belief impacts the execution of both the plan and the skills.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard self-limiting beliefs around age. A young sales professional complains, “I’m young. No one is going to take me seriously.” The “I’m too young” salesperson gets easily intimidated by calling on buyers who are her senior. She doesn’t believe this prospect will take her seriously. And sure enough, her negative self-talk turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy. She shows up to meetings lacking confidence, which in turn makes the prospect wonder if the product or service is really worth the investment. Lack of confidence is the reason the salesperson didn’t win the business, not her age.
On the opposite side of the age equation are veteran salespeople. Their limiting self-beliefs range from, “I’ve been at this selling game a long time . . . I’ve got this.” Or, “I’m too old to learn and master new tools for success.” Veteran salespeople don’t attend sales training courses because, well, they’ve got this. Some give a half-hearted attempt to master new selling or technology tools because their core belief is that you can’t teach an old sales dog a new sales trick. Beliefs drive actions and the result is no change and stagnant sales.
Believe It or Not
I’ve always felt very fortunate to have good bosses and mentors in my life, many that raised my self-awareness around self-limiting beliefs.
One of my first jobs out of college was working at the American Cancer Society in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I started as an assistant to the executive in charge of fundraising for the state. Carol was a terrific boss. One day, as were wrapping up a meeting, she said, “You are one of the most organized assistants I have ever had.” I responded with disbelief. “No, I’m actually disorganized.” She smiled and responded, “No, that would be incorrect. I’ve had a lot of assistants and you are right at the top.”
Game changer. My belief system up to that point was that “I would lose my head if it wasn’t attached.” This message came from my family and rightly so. I was that kid who was constantly leaving coats, sweaters, or scarves someplace. Not too much has changed in that category. If I’m not careful, I can still manage to lose one coat a year during my travels. (I’ve since learned that losing apparel is not the same as being disorganized.)
My boss changed my self-talk. I started looking at myself through a different lens, seeing how organized I was. And because I believed I was organized, I became even more organized. This piqued my interest on the topic of productivity, which developed into strong time-management habits that I continue to use today to be successful and less stressed in business.
Sales Management Self-Awareness Question: Do you know and understand self-limiting beliefs that might be holding your salespeople back from sales success?
Self-Limiting Beliefs about the Company
I’ve observed self-limiting beliefs around a salesperson’s attitude toward the company. The negative self-talk ranges from, “We’re too big,” to “We’re too small,” to “We’re too new.” These limiting beliefs result in salespeople blaming the company for their lack of success, rather than looking at their own selling skills and daily selling behaviors. The constant negative self-talk becomes their truth.
• “Our smaller competitors are more agile than my big, slow-moving company.” Beliefs drive actions. This salesperson doesn’t believe she can do anything to impact the outcome of a sales conversation. She gives up before she even shows up to the sales appointment.
• “We’re small . . . we don’t have the resources to handle bigger prospects or clients.” Beliefs drive actions. So, this salesperson doesn’t even pursue bigger deals. He doesn’t even give himself the opportunity to lose!
• “We’re new . . . no one wants to do business with an unknown entity in the market.” The first time salespeople hear a prospect say, “We haven’t heard of your company before,” they get extremely nervous. Instead of showing conviction and strength around their product and services, they immediately discount the price to win the business.
David and Goliath
When I started in sales with Varsity Spirit Corporation, our biggest competitor was about eight times our size. It was the classic David and Goliath story. The good news is that many of the early members of the sales team were new to sales. We didn’t even know enough to be nervous about the size of the competition! Ignorance is bliss. We didn’t worry about being the underdog because of our conviction in the company, our products, and our services.
I remember receiving my first sales report, summarizing the accounts in my territory of Iowa and Nebraska. There were around six hundred accounts, of which Varsity was conducting business with very few. In reviewing the report, I didn’t panic because—ignorance is bliss. My self-talk was positive. “Well, with six hundred accounts, surely I can open up at least forty new accounts this year.” And guess how many new accounts I opened up my first year in sales? Forty new accounts. Beliefs drive actions, skills, and outcome.
Looking back, I’m grateful that I wasn’t exposed to any negative salespeople who could have filled my head with self-limiting beliefs.
“You are the new kid on the block. It’s going to take you a long time to unseat the competitor.”
“The competition has better brand awareness. Prospects are going to be reluctant to work with you. You’ll probably need to discount to get a foot in the door.”
Even in my early years of sales, I had good self-awareness. I knew I wasn’t that good at sales. However, I believed I could outwork and out-service my competition. Those beliefs—not my average selling skills—opened up new accounts.
Sales Management Self-Awareness Question: Do you know and understand the limiting beliefs your sales team may have about the company and how those beliefs are affecting their sales success?
Self-Limiting Beliefs about Your Company’s Products and Services
We live in the information age, the technology age where it’s easier than ever to copy and duplicate products and service offerings. In an increasingly commoditized world, salespeople often start believing that they don’t have a differentiator. As a result, they default to poor selling behaviors such as discounting. They give unnecessary concessions in order to win business. We do a lot of work in these industries so I am familiar with the “we’re a commodity” story.
Well-intended sales managers try to solve these selling behaviors by teaching more consultative selling skills and negotiation skills. In some cases, this education will fix the selling on price problem.
However, in many situations, the sales manager needs to look further. The root cause of discounting might stem from your sales team’s belief systems and convictions around your products and services.
Conviction and Sales Results
I was working with a sales team in the furniture space. The VP of sales asked me to interview his top salesperson, Diaz, to see if I could figure out exactly what he was saying or doing as he was selling the top-of-the-line furniture at a profitable margin. After the interview, he wanted me to document what Diaz was saying or doing so we could incorporate it into the company’s sales playbook.
I sat down, eager to learn this salesperson’s secret selling sauce. I was expecting him to share provocative questions, challenging questions, insight selling, pre-call planning insights, closing skills. Instead, what I heard was a salesperson with deep conviction about the value he provided. His success was driven from positive beliefs around his products and services.
“I think I sell a lot because I really believe our target clients need a quality product. They don’t want to purchase furniture every other year. Our clients put in long days so they need good, ergonomic furniture. If they don’t have the right type of furniture and environment, it affects their ability to be productive. And that costs the company money. So, I actually don’t even discuss our less expensive lines of furniture. It’s not what they need.”
The notes added to the company sales playbook were very short.
“Believe in your products and services.”
Sales Management Self-Awareness Question: Do you know and understand the limiting beliefs your sales team may have about your products and services and how it’s affecting their sales success?
How to Improve Self-Limiting Beliefs and Negative Self-Talk
Okay, you’ve diagnosed a salesperson’s self-limiting belief. Now the hard work begins. It’s difficult to change belief systems for a variety of reasons. Once a person develops a core belief, they pay close attention to anything that reinforces that belief. It’s called belief perseverance. When a person believes something, they filter out evidence to the contrary. Look at the newspapers people subscribe to. Do people read papers that support their current beliefs or challenge their current beliefs? How about news channels? Do you listen to a news channel that supports your current beliefs or challenges you to think in new ways?
I remember working with an underperforming salesperson who believed he didn’t have time to prospect. But he always seemed to find time to study his cheaper competitors’ price points. That data supported his belief system that his company’s products were too high-priced. (Never mind that other salespeople on his team were closing business at full margin.)
Coaching self-limiting belief systems requires delayed gratification skills as shifting beliefs may not be a quick fix. It requires pre-call planning questions that are different than those used for pre-briefing or debriefing sales calls.
Perception or Actual
It’s important to figure out if your salesperson’s limiting belief is based on perception or past experience. The correct diagnosis helps you coach and provide the right solution to the problem.
Perception is a way of regarding or interpreting an event or situation. The problem is the interpretation isn’t based on data or facts. Beliefs based on perception evolve from the stories a salesperson has told himself over and over about a selling scenario. Tell yourself a story long enough and the story moves from fiction to nonfiction. Perception becomes a salesperson’s reality, their truth.
It’s tempting to tell a salesperson that their perception is false. Go back to the basic principles of effective sales. If you are telling, you are not selling—and the same principle applies in coaching. People believe their own data so if you are telling during a coaching session you are not “selling” the salesperson on a new way of looking at a situation.
One of the coaching tools I use to shift perception and false stories is pivot questions. These coaching questions make a salesperson stop, pivot, and say, “Huh, I never thought of that perspective. Hmm . . . might be a new way of looking at this selling scenario.” Pivot questions help a salesperson discover a new truth, a new story, and a more positive belief.
Here are a few pivot questions that challenge perceptions.
Scenario One
Salesperson: “No one knows who we are so I can’t even get a conversation opened up.”
Pivot Questions
• “Is that based on perception or data?” (Be ready to explain the difference.)
• “Is it the brand that opens up most sales conversations or the relevance of the prospecting messages to the potential buyer?” (Raise self-awareness around the quality—or lack of quality—of the seller’s prospecting outreaches.)
• “How many well-known brands started out in business being the unknown brand? What do you think those salespeople did to create opportunities?” (A great question that helps the salesperson realize that every company has been an unknown brand at some point in the life cycle of their company.)
Scenario Two
Salesperson: “Our prices are just too high.”
Pivot Questions
• “Are our prices too high or are you calling on the wrong prospects?” (Great question to help the salesperson discover she needs to invest more time in identifying and targeting the right prospects.)
• “We do have clients that are paying full margin. What is the common pain point that we solve for them and how do we find more of those buyers?” (This question eliminates victim mentality and lack of control.)
• “Is the prospect actually saying that or are you thinking that?” (You’d be surprised at how many times you will hear a salesperson say, “Uh, no . . . but . . .”)
Perception is reality and as the Chief Belief Officer of your company, it’s your job to coach your sales team to recognize false realities and create new ones. They are making up stories about a selling situation so why not help them create better stories!
When the Past Drives the Future
A past failure or bad sales call can easily become a salesperson’s new truth. “I don’t know enough. I’m not good enough. I need more training . . .”
Never underestimate how often failure inhibits salespeople from executing the right selling behaviors. For example, you’ve taught, coached, and told your sales team the value of calling on the C-suite. You’ve preached, “This is where decisions are made and money is invested.”
However, the last time your salesperson Joe called on a big title and big office, he got stumped by the questions asked from the big prospect. He felt embarrassed and intimidated, and has rehearsed that failed sales call over and over, like a bad rerun. Based on this onetime event, Joe’s new belief is that he’s not good enough to hold conversations with C-suite buyers.
The salesperson’s reptilian brain adds to his fear of failure. The reptilian brain is all about avoiding danger. And in this case, the reptilian brain tells the salesperson to play it safe, avoid those big buyers in the C-suite. It’s not logical thinking, but remember, the reptilian brain isn’t operating on logic. It’s operating on emotion, and feeling stupid is not a great emotion to go forth and conquer the next sales call.
Self-Awareness and Coaching
Apply the EQ skill of self-awareness and examine your go-to response as a sales manager. If you’re like me, my first response is to teach Joe more tactical, consultative selling skills on how to effectively engage with the C-suite buyer.
Stop and think. Address the real issue, which is Joe’s self-limiting belief around not being good enough or smart enough. Apply empathy and step into Joe’s shoes and think about his self-talk after this recent face-plant. His negative chatter might include, “They know more than I do. I’m not ready to handle this size of deal. Big titles are tough people to deal with. These people don’t respect salespeople.” Joe is not going to do well on his next sales call carrying that briefcase full of self-limiting beliefs.
People believe their own data. Take time to design coaching questions that help your “Joe” discover different answers and positive self-talk.
First, apply empathy and state what your salesperson is thinking or feeling. “Boy, that must have been a difficult meeting . . . I’ve had a few of those myself. I’m guessing you might even be wondering if you even want to call on larger accounts.” Once you hear a yes from the salesperson, ask permission to further explore. Empathy first, advice second. Create questions that help your salesperson discover that he will live to sell another day.
• What lessons did you learn from this difficult sales meeting?
• How will you apply the lessons learned to set yourself up for success on the next call?
• Are you smarter because of this bad call?
• What’s the worst thing that can happen if you don’t know the answer to a question on future calls?
• What can you do to be better prepared for the next call?
• What do you think big decision makers want? (Answer: Confidence. Honesty. No BS.)
• How do you think your reptilian brain is playing into your success? What can you do to improve your mental pre-call planning for the next sales meeting?
Great sales managers and coaches are like great doctors. They’re good at diagnosing the root cause for poor selling performance, which helps them prescribe the right coaching solutions.
Belief Systems and the Power of Storytelling
Augment your coaching efforts with stories of people who have overcome the odds by believing in themselves and not believing in the naysayers. Stories are a great teaching tool because the brain is wired to remember stories.
A great story about the power of positive self-talk and belief in one’s ability is that of Diana Nyad. Nyad has a long list of accomplishments. In 1975, she set a speed world record by swimming around Manhattan in less than eight hours. Her 102.5-mile swim from the Bahamas to Florida broke records set by both men and women. But her dream was swimming the 110 miles between Havana and Key West. She tried several times and failed because of jellyfish attacks, asthma attacks, and weather. Finally, on her fifth try, she achieved her dream, becoming the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage or fins. She was sixty-four years old.
Can you imagine how many people told Diana she was too old to try this swim at age sixty-four?
“Diana, come on, give it up. You’re on the back nine of your swimming career.”
She had failed at four prior attempts.
“Diana, you gave it your best shot. It’s just not in the cards for you. Take up the game of golf.”
Diana Nyad was successful not only because of her athleticism but also because of her strong belief in herself and her abilities. Watch her TED talk or listen to interviews and you will hear her positive self-talk. Her mantra, and the title of her book, is Find a Way.
Find a Way is a great belief system to instill in your sales team. Teach your team the power of positive affirmations and acting as if they’ve already achieved their goals. Whatever you say to yourself long enough becomes a belief, becomes your truth.
Use Diana’s Find a Way positive self-talk to help your team get started.
1. I will find a way to consistently execute my sales activity plan.
2. I will find a way to improve my selling skills every day.
3. I will find a way to emotionally connect with everyone I speak to each day.
4. I will find a way to achieve my sales goal with ease and grace.
5. I will find a way to be happy and optimistic every day.
6. I will find a way to manage my emotions.
7. I will find a way to attract great people into my life.
Imagine the sales results your team would achieve by writing and saying these affirmations every day. It’s time to add one more sales metric to the sales activity plan. Set a metric for your team to listen to or read positive and motivational information every day. Beliefs drive sales results. What does your sales team believe?
Sales Leaders EQ Action Plan
1. Evaluate each person on your sales team. What positive beliefs are driving their actions or selling behaviors? What negative beliefs are impacting their sales performance?
2. Develop coaching questions to help each salesperson discover limiting beliefs that are holding them back.
3. Pick up Keith Rosen’s book Sales Leadership. He’s developed a lot of great coaching questions for sales managers.
4. Teach your team the power of positive self-talk. Find stories to support your training.
5. Apply self-awareness. What skills do you need to learn or improve in order to better coach your team on self-limiting belief systems? Telling is not selling or influencing.
6. Examine your own belief systems. How convicted are you about yourself, your company, and the products and services you offer?