The art of selling may not come naturally to everyone, but by embracing business psychology techniques your workforce can become an extension of the sales team. The outcome? A boost to revenues and more motivated employees, says Bryan McCrae
The 80/20 Rule
Working on Pareto?s Principle, 20 per cent of existing clients will bring in 80 per cent of revenue. Surely, therefore, our most powerful sales people are actually those who have day-to-day dealings with customers? On this basis, all staff who have any contact with clients need to understand their role when it comes to customer interaction and that they are part of the extended sales team.
Mind over matter
Sales; just hearing the word fills most of us with dread, as images of dodgy, second-hand car dealers come to mind. However, this limiting factor can be addressed by using powerful proven psychological techniques.
Fundamentally, in many professions, there is an issue around the thoughts, feelings and beliefs evoked by the words ?sales? or ?selling?. This is where a change of mind-set can be very helpful, a ?re-framing? in psychological terms. Rather than think of it as selling, let?s think of it as of the process of helping to solve any problems encountered by new clients and of keeping our existing clients happy, so they will want to stay with our organisation and keep spending with us, instead of with our competitors.
By challenging our mind-set, we can then address the lack of motivation commonly associated with doing something with which we don?t feel comfortable. In fact, there is no need for any administrative professional to feel uncomfortable with sales.
Self-coaching for success
One approach that has been proven to be very effective in changing mind-sets is structured self-coaching. Just like a series of face-to-face coaching sessions, this involves clarifying what we want to change (eg ?I want to feel more confident when giving a sales presentation?) then identifying, exploring and overcoming the psychological barriers to achieving the goal, followed by creating an action plan to implement it.
This sort of thinking technique can be incredibly powerful and if followed through properly, can result in increased motivation, greater ability to recover quickly from challenges and higher sales as a consequence.
Thought challenging
Another approach, called ?thought challenging?, is helpful when it comes to breaking any kind of negative thinking pattern. Take for example this belief: ?I must be able to answer any question that is asked of me by a client immediately, or I will look stupid and we will lose the sale as a result.?
You then analyse this thought using the following four questions:
Am I making any thinking errors? These are a common set of unhelpful thinking patterns that we all fall into from time to time and include emotional labelling, magnification and ?should? statements.
What is the evidence for and against this thought or belief? Do all effective PAs really know the answer to every question that clients might ask of them?
What are other ways of looking at this situation? What would happen if I said ?I?m not certain of the answer, but I?ll find out and get back to you within 24 hours??
What am I actually going to do about this situation that will bring about change? If I do nothing then the upshot is likely to be the same each time, so I need to work out how I?ll think, feel and behave differently on the next occasion, to generate a different outcome.
In fact, using these techniques has been shown to result in a 20 per cent increase in employees reaching or exceeding their sales targets, compared to a control group who didn?t use them.
Embrace the challenge of sales and the next time you face a taxing situation in the workplace, dare to query your own mind-set and see if you can engender a more positive result.
Bryan McCrae is a Business & Sales Psychologist and MD of Sales-Motivations. Visit sales-motivations.com to discover more about its e-learning solutions
