Salespeople: Doubt Equals Poison!
I was reading comments about the book and film, “The DaVinci Code,” and one pious person said they are very damaging; indeed “poison” because they “make people doubt.”
Looking beyond these works, and the controversy surrounding them, this comment is very much worth examining.
To put it succinctly, it says: DOUBT IS POISON.
What an incredibly provocative notion, especially for salespeople. If you expect to succeed, you can’t afford to poison yourself, or allow yourself to be poisoned by doubt.
If you do, it can be lethal to your job and to your career.
I can trace my serious sales slumps to my doubts. When I have doubted, my income has plummeted, and when I have been certain about my products and my abilities, my earnings have soared.
Period.
This correlation pertains to EVERYTHING I have sold, from books, to car leasing, to seminars and speeches, to coaching.
I can also see how this correlation applies to happiness and fulfillment in my personal life.
A more positive way to construe this is to say:
CERTAINTY SELLS.
You can translate this phrase any way you wish, substituting the word, “confidence,” but this isn’t quite the same. To me, confidence is a relative term, denoting a quantity of something.
You can feel 20% confident that you’ll earn a sale, for instance. But certainty is absolute.
It’s definite, a done deal.
You could try to equate “believing in your product,” said to be a plus for salespeople, with certainty, but again, beliefs can be strong or weak.
If you merely believe or are only confident, you still foster some doubts. Part of you is moving ahead, and the other part is holding you back. You can only achieve mediocrity this way.
In a separate article I mention that the strongest appeal you can make to a prospect is to say, buying is inevitable. The famous tire ad that declared, “Sooner or later, you’ll own Generals!” tapped into this power.
This is an example of certainty rolling up its sleeves and getting down to work.
I realize that the purpose of philosophy as an area of study, and perhaps the liberal arts, in general, is to promote doubt as an intellectual exercise. I support this; it makes us smarter, and more open and complete beings.
However, once we put on our sales hats, we’re not taking a class, or engaging in an intellectual exchange.
We’re doing something that must produce consistent, predictable, and reliable results, like applied sciences, if you will.
So, every time you’re about to speak to a prospect, eradicate your doubts as to whether your goods and services are the best choice for him.
They are, and the time to buy is now.
Period!
Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone® and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC’s Annenberg School, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com.
