Your Future Has To Be Scroll Free

📅 3rd September 2018 | Mindset Selling

It’s Scroll Free September – or “digital cold turkey” as some users on Facebook described it. According to health professionals and a Government committee, being on social media is bad for our cognitive abilities and general mental health. And they are possibly correct, particularly when it comes to the younger generation.

One of the benefits of looking away from your digital device is that you’ll be free of those awful sales success adverts. Many of them depicting a gold bar or a cool looking guy surrounded by attractive young women. All of them leaning on the latest offering by Lamborghini. These adverts say things like:

“Only this phrase will get your customers to understand your value proposition….” OR

Come to our RAMP UP SALES event where you will learn the secrets of sales success. The first step to your millionaire lifestyle. Only £127.00

Years ago in the pre-internet era, the London Evening Standard had a line advert which ran for ages. It went something like “I’m 30, I own 4 houses, two cars and take three foreign holidays each year – and you can to!” a likely story…

But we get addicted to this nonsense don’t we? And we say to ourselves, “if only (the saddest phrase in the English speaking world) I could find a way to be as successful as them”

Then we pay a visit to the best bookshop in town. One of the largest sections after Philosophy and “Best Sellers A-J” is “Self Help” There you will find some great titles. But a simple Google or Amazon search will come up with Joe Karbo’s “The Lazy Man’s Way To Riches” which has been a best seller for decades. Some of the stuff in Joe’s book probably does work, but you have to be Joe-like to emulate his “success”. If you’re Dexter from Derby or Sybil from Stevenage you will need to follow your own path.

As salespeople, we are continually trying to find that sales enablement tool that will enable more sales! The massed ranks of the self-employed and organisations alike spend countless millions on the latest sales methodology training which will hopefully bring in those riches faster and more often. Then when it finally fails, more is invested in the next “sales cure” for flagging sales people and their exasperated management teams. And so it goes on.

But there is another way, isn’t there?

Firstly, embrace “scroll free September” and permanently reduce your activity on social media (except your business platforms)

Secondly, execute your plan. One sales manager said to me years ago that salespeople need to spend 90% of their working time actively seeking out new prospects. 90%! That’s tough going. But life is tough.

In the real world, salespeople need to do these things:

Work every day

Gain rapport with customers

Listen

Educate customers

Show value

Solve customer problems

Sounds easy doesn’t it? Well maybe it’s simple rather than easy. Simplicity though can take years of practice, refinement, focus and dedication.

Look at the top people in any sales force from stationery to satellite systems and you will find people who have put in the hours, been knocked down and got up many, many times. They learn from their mistakes and from the experience of others. They never stop learning.

There is no magic dust just plain old-fashioned hard work.