Turning a Negative into a Positive

 If you haven't closed any business in 30 days (or your expected sales cycle), and you keep getting think-it-overs instead of decisions, then yes, you better be depressed. FYI, research dictates that 96% of think-it-overs end up becoming a "No." (Yes, you read that right ... 96%)!

 Unfortunately, we find a lot of salespeople who believe that saying anything negative about their performance on a sales call is a bad thing. This makes the manager's ability to debrief mistakes and coach for improvement very difficult.

A few reasons why sales people may do this:

1. Sales management can't stand bad news and only wants to hear positive things.
2. The salesperson's own self-esteem won't allow him/her to reflect or recognize personal failure or lack of execution.
3. There is no systematic process for selling. Therefore, sales management never knows if a mistake was even made in the sales cycle, and has no clue what the problem is - never mind how to fix it.
4. Management doesn't track prospecting and/or appointment results, and therefore never knows if sales execution is the problem.
5. The salesperson has taken too many Positive Mental Attitude seminars, and has blindly become one of R.E.M.'s "Shiny, Happy People!"

SOME SOLUTIONS:

1. When you get a think-it-over or lose a prospect, say it, and TAKE RESPONSIBILITY. To do this you must build your own self esteem, through an "I" side journal and real world self-talk.
2. Commit to an effective sales process (if not ours, then someone's).
3. Then realistically debrief (assuming you have an effective process) on what went wrong, and define the changes you will make to perform at a much higher level next time.