Currently, my associate and I are working to put together a Dale Carnegie Course in McKinney, TX. It’s tough. In fact, it’s tougher today than say, a year ago. People, and companies, have hunkered down. They’re wondering which way to jump. And, it almost doesn’t matter what you sell, it’s tougher all over.
So, like every salesman (or saleswoman), I’m “professionally concerned” about what’s going on in today’s economy. What do I need to do to succeed – or even just make a living? The problem with “professional concern”? In sales, it sounds a lot like regular worry (translation – fear) to our prospects.
Dr. Albert Mehrabian conducted a 10-year long study at UCLA on communication. We’ve all heard his statistics cited:
55% – body language,
38% – tone of voice
7% – the words we use.
Most of the time, these statistics are cited incorrectly.
These statistics apply when we’re NOT congruent – when what we’re saying doesn’t match what we believe. (If it applied all the time, no one would have to learn a foreign language. We could just act it out, and grunt with the right tone of voice and people would get our message.)
OK, so how does this relate to sales?
Well, when we don’t manage our stress effectively, that “professional concern” creeps into our voice, and we’re not congruent anymore – at least not to our future clients. After all, selling effectively is really a transfer of enthusiasm. When we’re stressed, we’re not transferring the right kind of enthusiasm to our future clients.
The concern we feel may be totally unrelated to our product, but our future client doesn’t know that. All they know is something is making us uneasy – and that makes them uneasy. So, they wait. They stall. They delay. And, when we push harder, they dig their heels in even more.
Does any of this sound familiar?
What can we do?
I went back to Dale Carnegie’s book: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. As I was reading through those 30 principles on dealing more effectively with stress and worry, I realized that, like most people, I was not applying them consistently or conscientiously.
(Yes, I know, I’m an instructor; I should be doing this automatically. My theory: when things are going well, we get out of practice dealing with stress so when it does hit, we’re not “conditioned” to manage it effectively.)
So, here’s what I am doing:
I resolve to live in “day-tight” compartments. More people tell me this is the most important principle they learned about handling stress and worry in their lives. Usually it’s about shutting off the worry when they leave work, or at the end of the day. For me, it helps me enjoy the process. When we’ve done all we can, at the end of the day, call it quits and don’t worry about it any more.
I resolve to keep busy. As a result, there isn’t time to fret about what is or isn’t happening. Our focus is on what we’re doing at the moment, so we can’t be “professionally concerned” about anything else. At the end of the day, we will have made forward progress.
I resolve to fill my mind with thoughts of peace, courage, health and hope. There is enough bad stuff out there, and enough bad stuff happening all around us to keep us busy all day long just reading about it. And, it does what for us? Exactly how does focusing on all the junk in our lives (and what the media reports about the lives of others) help us make the next sale? It doesn’t. In easy times, maybe we have the luxury of indulging ourselves – not today. As professional salespeople, we get more rejection and resistance in a month than most of these Hollywood lightweights get in a lifetime. Let’s stand guard to control what comes into our minds and what we allow ourselves to dwell on.
I resolve to count my blessings not my troubles. Do we remember to be thankful for our families? Our health? Our country? How about our profession? We make our living in the most rewarding way. We are professional problem solvers. In today’s economy, there are more than the usual share of problems that need solving. Do we have to be more focused? Yes. Do we need to really be thinking about what how we can help our customers? Yes. Do we have to specifically identify the benefits our customers get from working with us? Without a doubt. Is it harder? Yes, it is. And, when we’re willing to look under more rocks than our competition, while we may not have the same success we’ve had previously, we’ll still be here when things do eventually turn around. Our competitors, on the other hand, will be working for someone else.
I resolve to cooperate with the inevitable. OK, the economy is terrible. Ignoring the fact that many of us are working harder for fewer sales will not help us be more successful. AND, dwelling on how difficult things are will not help us either. Cooperating with the inevitable doesn’t mean sitting idly by and accepting whatever happens. It does mean engaging in what Napoleon Hill calls “accurate thinking.” While we can’t change the economy for the entire world, we can deal realistically with what’s going on in our world so we can make better, more informed, more accurate, and ultimately, more profitable decisions.
I resolve to pray. I’ve often wondered how someone can be in commissioned sales without faith in a higher power. It’s tough enough in the good times dealing with the rejection and resistance, the put-offs, and put-downs by the very people we try so hard to help. For me, it’s a relief to put that burden on His shoulders. As a result, I’m more effective at focusing on what needs to get done. I can enjoy the process, because I realize ultimately, I only control what I do.
These are some of the principles I’m applying to handle the stress in my life.
It’s critical because, if I’m not managing my stress effectively, I can’t be congruent talking to someone else about how I can help them handle their stress. Being incongruent looks like lying. If we look as though we’re lying, people don’t trust us. Do you do business with people you don’t trust?
Neither do I.
That’s why it’s so important for us to manage our stress and worry – particularly as we work harder to earn more sales.
If you want to learn more about how the Dale Carnegie Course can help you be more effective in sales and in life, click on the link to the right and we’ll schedule a time to visit about it.