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Develop belief, pride to have your best year ever
By Jeffrey Gitomer
Contributing Writer
Two truths: You are looking to have your best year ever, and you have already broken all of your New Year’s resolutions.
In my last column, I gave you the first two elements of how to have your best year ever: Define yourself, and develop a sales mission statement.
Here are the next three elements to master.
Have a deep belief in the three critical areas of selling. In order to make your message transferable, in order to engage your prospective buyers in a way that they want to do business with you, and before you develop your sales skills and your presentation skills, you must deepen your beliefs.
You have to believe that you work for the greatest company in the world.
You have to believe that you offer the greatest product or service(s) in the world.
You have to believe you’re the greatest salesperson in the world.
I have often said in my live seminars that “mediocrity stems from lack of belief more than lack of skill.”
Most people blame their own inability and their lack of belief on a variety of external circumstances: pricing, the marketplace, the Internet, the competition, bidding, the economy and a bunch of other conjured up excuses that prevent a belief system from anchoring in success.
If you believe, all the excuses fade away.
Develop greater pride in accomplishments. Personal pride is easily defined when you think about your child playing the piano, dancing in a recital, scoring a soccer goal or hitting a home run.
But I’m going to ask you to redefine personal pride as taking ownership.
When you buy a new car, you ride around the neighborhood showing it off.
Would you do the same thing if you rented a car?
Would you drive around the neighborhood and say, “Hey everybody, look at my new rental!”
Take it even further. If your kid spills a bag of potato chips in the back of a rental car, what do you do?
Nothing, it’s a rental. Who cares?
But if your kid spills a bag of potato chips in the back of your new BMW, you make them lick them up off the back seat.
You have to take pride in your achievements and your accomplishments.
That pride, that ownership and that responsibility will lead you to the next achievement.
Ownership and pride are closely related. But be careful of pride’s evil twins: cockiness and arrogance.
In sales, oftentimes you have to pat yourself on the back because others don’t give you enough praise.
Part of having your best year ever is building your own sense of pride without others having to reinforce it.
You are what you eat. Every person I know, including me, has 10 pounds of weight on them that they wish they didn’t have.
There’s one exception. His name is Eric Taylor. Eric has tied physical fitness to mental fitness. Eric eats right, exercises right and earns right.
He is certain there’s a connection, and so am I.
Look around at the people you work with. Discover for yourself the correlation between fitness and success.
Personally, this is my weakest area. I write about it, and I pledge to do something about it, but progress is slow.
Through the encouragement of my partner, I’m taking at least one brisk walk a day. Sometimes two.
If you want to have your best year ever, you have to start someplace.
And you have to work at it every day.
Your next mission: Read my next column for part three of how to have your best year ever.
Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible and The Little Red Book of Selling, is the president of Charlotte-based Buy Gitomer. E-mail him at salesman@gitomer.com.
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