When I started my first selling job our team was always interested in the latest methods and techniques that would help us to get better leads, qualify our prospects better, and close more sales. We got to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and tried to lift each other up through challenging times.

Fast forward about 1-2 years later. My company hired a new salesperson whom I will call Gregg. Gregg dove head-first into the position and plowed forward. Within a couple of months, he was outselling everyone on the team, myself included. The funny thing about it was that even after a year of being with the company and being the top-selling person nearly every month, Gregg was still telling his clients that he was kind of new to the job.

I don’t know if Gregg was saying this to try and convince his prospects he was new or if he was working to keep his mindset in the “newby” mentality. Either way, it worked and he continued to be one of the company’s top sellers.

So why am I telling you this story, and what did I take away from this experience?

Have you ever noticed that many new hires who don’t know much about what they are doing seem to be really successful? Frequently, over time that success seems to taper off and they fall in with the rest of the team with average performance.

Why do you suppose that is? What are they doing differently than everyone else on your team is doing?

As a team, we were fully aware of what Gregg was doing. By staying in the “newby” mindset, he kept on with the basics of selling our products because he knew that the basics worked. Gregg was persistent and consistent, never stopped and in the end, was very successful.

This is something we all noticed and learned from and something that in my sales career now, I try to remind myself. Gregg was successful because he did not skip the necessary steps to the sale. Tirelessly, he performed the steps that he knew were needed, EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Keep up with the basics, keep up with what works, and be consistent.

It is easy to listen to the voices in your head that are telling you sales lies every day. Lies like:

• “This prospect is not really interested”
• “Cold calls and cold emails don’t work”
• “Our products (or services) are too expensive”
• “They are just price shopping”
• “I’m too busy maintaining my current accounts to waste time with this prospect.”

If you wanted to succeed like Gregg, turn off the lies your brain is telling you, the lies that are keeping you from being successful. Your brain is telling you a story that is holding you back from doing your job the way you know how to do it.

Stop thinking too much about it, and just do it!

Go back to the basics of what works.

If you need some inspiration, Read some good books on sales and selling, and view some online tutorials on selling and prospecting to help you get back on track. If you are like me, you will rediscover selling practices that work well that you have always known about and you will sometimes say to yourself: “I used to do that all the time, and it worked, why have I stopped?”

Maybe it is time to reinvest in yourself and develop yourself a little further. There are many different approaches to proven ideas. Find an author, trainer, or mentor that resonates with you, and you can breathe new life into what has been proven to work.

Stop overthinking the steps before you do them, and just do them!

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My name is Duane Becker and I educate Kitchen Designers on key ideas to design and sales techniques to help them present their designs and motivate their clients to purchase. I have held design and sales seminars for the NKBA, KBIS, Lowe’s, and consulted for private dealers, individuals, and showrooms.

Tags: #kitchens, #sales, #selling, nkba, selling