Arguably, last year (2014) was a very tough year for most sales organisations due to the economic challenges.

These included the depreciation of the Cedi against the major currencies; increased taxation (direct and indirect); increase in cost of production and doing business through increases in utility and fuel prices; the impact of power rationing; as well as the “cranking up” of labour and anti-government agitations.

The result was the general feeling of a sense of uncertainty and despondency among many business owners. However, in the midst of this “gloom” and uncertainties, some sales organisations were successful in generating incremental sales volumes for their companies.

The key difference between the sales organisations which were successful and those who weren’t was the MINDSET of their salespeople.

The influence of negative media headlines My view is that media is one of the biggest sources of limiting mindset for salespeople. Just imagine a salesperson who spends majority of his time driving to work and clients’ appointments, tuning in to the myriad of radio stations (almost all of them with the same programming format) and is inundated with a heavy cocktail of gloomy statistics, news and commentary which “amplifies” the economic woes of this country.

The cherry on the icing of that “bitter” cake is the ‘spinning and propaganda’ from the ‘surrogates’ of political parties – so-called serial callers, members of communication teams, youth leaders as well as ‘pressure groups’ – with doom’s day commentaries such as: “factories have laid off tens of thousands of people”; “many importers can’t import”; “there’s no money in the system” etc.

Regrettably, most salespeople who listen and internalise them end up with a negative mindset which limits their success at the market place. The symptoms of the negative mindset include; sales call reluctance, procrastination, and avoidance.

A case in point Let me illustrate my point with a real-life story I heard from the sales manager of one of the leading shipping firms in Ghana. According to the sales manager, orders from a key territory in the country were not being generated enough and they were lagging behind target (same situation applied to competitors). The reasons by some territory salespeople for the situation were the economy, depreciation of the cedi, blah, blah, blah!

To cut a long story short, he sent a “mission-critical” sales representative from the head office to spend a week in the territory with the objective of contacting existing customers, reactivating any dormant ones, and prospect for new business.

After a week, the “mission-critical” sales rep walked away with more than 200 ‘40-footer container’ shipment of orders. So why is it the case that the ‘mission-critical’ sales rep from another territory succeeded where the incumbents were limited in the number of orders they could generate within the year? It’s got to do with MINDSET.

The mission-critical salesperson approached the territory with an open mind and a focus to generate orders, no excuses!

Importance of a belief system Every coin has two sides, and for many who are not sure which side to choose, they would flip a coin and whichever faces up is what they choose. In the same way, every salesperson has two sides (faces) to their belief system: what I call the Automatic Belief System (ABS) and the Automatic Disbelief System (ADS). I define the ABS as the situation where a salesperson believes and internalises what they hear and see around them, and ‘allow’ them to adversely affect their MINDSET.

Conversely, ADS is the situation where a salesperson disbelieves and doesn’t internalise what they hear and see around them, and don’t allow it to adversely affect their MINDSET.

As you can see, salespeople do not need to flip a coin to choose which side of their belief system to let loose and which one to lock up when confronted with such doom’s day economic forecasts. The choice should be apparent, and therefore, mindful and purposeful.

Unfortunately, most salespeople appear to allow the ABS to sabotage them in challenging economic times resulting in a negative, not positive MINDSET. Given the opportunity, however, a salesperson’s ADS can be relied on to help them emerge and do extremely well in challenging economic times, to find the hidden opportunity in the crisis resulting in a positive not negative MINDSET. Here are three practical tips for salespeople to deliberately choose ADS and discard ABS in developing a positive MINDSET:

1. Avoid completely or limit your exposure to media content which may make you vulnerable to yielding to negativity. For instance, a salesperson must understand that serial callers, party communicators and spokes persons who put a spin on current economic “failings” or otherwise for propaganda purposes on our various media 24/7 are just doing their job.

Many of them will be rewarded for their endeavour now and/or in the future by their parties. The question is how do you wish to get remunerated if as a salesperson you use their comments to determine whether to sell or not to sell? You cannot wait for the next election and victory for your party.

2. Use affirmations. Even in situations where you can’t avoid listening and reading the gloomy headlines, develop and focus on strong Belief-System Programming Statements which say, in spite of the challenges, you believe there are many opportunities out there to sell your service and products. By the way, remember that if the economy were so BAD as the media wanted you to believe, then you wouldn’t have a job in the first place.

3. Create your personalised media channel. Invest in loads of motivational, sales skills, business acumen CDs, Podcasts etc which you can listen to while driving, waiting to see a customer or when alone. Listening to inspirational music is also recommended to help you focus.

Conclusion Salespeople must understand that when it comes to selling, what they believe about the market place will impact their sales success. It is, therefore, important to drive a new MINDSET about the market place. GB

The writer is the C.E.O of Salesmark Services He is also a Sales Consultant, Trainer & Coach For a FREE Consultation, you can reach him at E-mail: mocloo@salesmarkservices.com