Superstition can be created by anything. Some get superstitious when they do not wear their lucky shirt when their favorite football team is playing. Some even get superstitious when something breaks just before an important event like… an interview for a new job.
The problem with superstition is, it’s all in the mind.
Think about it, how would your lucky shirt help your favorite team win when the playing team does not even know that you are sitting in front of your TV watching them?
How does this relate to sales? There are cases where some salespeople get very superstitious. For example, if it rains just before an appointment, some superstitious salespeople might say “Oh!! Raining…Bad luck, I’d better cancel the appointment! The meeting will turn out bad”
Again, it is all in the mind. It is very unlikely that the rain will affect your customer’s decision in what you are proposing. Well, he might be in a sour mood because he has to cancel his golf game, but the rain does not mean your meeting with him will turn out bad. They are just not related.
For all you know, looking from another point of view, he might welcome the rain since it was unusually hot that day.
How To Get Out Of This Mindset
It is all about the effort
Superstition will not get you the sale. If it has happened before in your past sale, it was most probably a coincidence. What will help you close a sale is not superstition but the amount of effort you invest in. The more effort you put in your prospects, they will be a buyer eventually. Salespeople who fail to put in the effort will give up and blame it on superstition and bad luck.
Superstition slows you down
Superstition might be a double edge sword for you. It can help you and at the same time break you.
For example, Jack, a sales executive has a lucky pair of black shoes that somehow help him close deals easily. Whenever he wears that shoe, he somehow manages to close a sale as compared to his other shoes. So, whenever he has an important deal to close, he always wears that lucky shoe.
Let’s think about it….It might work for Jack to have that lucky shoe and it is great that he can close deals easier with that shoe. But what about days when he is not wearing the shoe, or if the shoes are lost or worn out? Would his sales be affected? Definitely! He will feel demotivated and fearful when he meets an important client without his lucky black shoe.
Superstition is a cover-up
Superstition covers up your traits. In Jack’s case, whenever he wears his lucky black shoes, his mind immediately tells him that he is feeling lucky today and it makes him more confident, cheerful, and probably friendlier.
It is not that the shoe made him more confident, cheerful, and friendlier but it is all in his mind. It is not like he took pills to make him more confident but it is the fact that the mind is able to control his emotions. In actual fact, he is that kind of person already. The problem is, it is not showing most of the time.
He could be more confident, cheerful, and friendlier if he had worn other shoes, but the reason he couldn’t because his mind did not believe it. It is a barrier. If he could break that barrier, he could be just as positive regardless of what shoes he wears! This will transform to more sales closure!
The Mind Is Powerful
Your mind is so powerful that your body reacts to it. In sales, it is important to be positive, motivated, and energetic. Prospects can immediately detect when a salesperson is demotivated and lacking in energy. What happens next is the prospects will instantly get uninterested and that sales person loses that sale.
When a salesperson has a superstition barrier, his mind controls his actions. There are days when he feels good and some days where he is going to be very cautious because of bad luck. A salesperson should not have this mindset because a salesperson should be motivated every day! A salesperson should make lots of cold calls and set lots of appointments every single day.
Breaking Mindset
It is not easy to break a mindset. But it is not impossible. Barriers like fear, lack of confidence, unmotivated, emotions and etc are all in the mind. To learn how to break those negative mindset, continue here
