Help...I've Abandoned My Instincts

We all have sales instincts and often it becomes difficult to ignore them when a sale isn’t going right. So, why do we continuously choose to be prospect pleasers rather than professionals who politely remove toxic relationships to make way for more appropriate opportunities?

Well, the answer is simple…We are hoping that we are wrong. If you haven’t guessed yet, this post is about trusting ourselves, being confident, and displaying confidence in difficult situations. When we betray our inner voice by acting emotionally or irrationally, we produce a demotivating confidence-reducing effect that lasts far beyond the deal. The lingering feeling in turn reduces our effectiveness on subsequent deals. And, before we know it, we are repeating this bad habit.

Why does the habit get repeated? Well, as we become used to the abuse we are receiving, either in way of a prospect using us, lying to us, or mistreating us, we begin to believe we either deserve this treatment or accept it as part of the job. It is not part of the job. Let’s look at what it means to be a salesperson and why instinctually understanding when we are being treated unprofessionally is so important to our mental health.

What is your job as a salesperson? To help people! So, why do salespeople so often get treated as though they are parasitic or untrustworthy? Everyone knows why the salesperson is there, so why do they so often feel misled? Its perception and stigma that drives the salesperson stereotype. If you know that a person is there to sell you something, then you possess the power to defend against being sold. Furthermore, if you have a need the salesperson can fulfill, then why defend at all? Why not embrace and discover?

Salespeople have been creating discover posture in prospects for quite some time. This has flipped the script on how to sell. As a result, the need to engage in adversarial sales situations should be a fading trend. The point? Don’t allow yourself to get dragged into sales situations established on unprofessional, difficult, and anti-process prospects. If your instincts tell you that the prospect isn’t engaged and not interested in the sales process, analyze and decide whether politely firing the prospect is the smart sales move.