In the past few weeks, I’ve started to take my two sons Toby and Nathan to Aikido classes.
Aikido is a Japanese martial art based on diverting an attacker’s energy to resolve conflict.
Surprisingly, it has tremendous synchronicity to what I teach my Unlock The Game Inner Circle members.
I’ve just picked up Aikido again, bringing my kids along, after taking a break from it for a year or so.
As I’ve begun to re-acquaint myself with the techniques and the philosophy of the power of diffusing conflict, more and more similarities are emerging to my philosophy about selling.
You see, if you’re selling the old way “going for the close” and “playing the numbers game”, you can’t help but to be create conflict with the very people you are hoping to sell too.
Sales pressure and the reaction to it, rejection, is triggered by the person initiating the sales relationship.
The more you use old-school sales techniques and sales thinking, the faster your prospect’s guard goes up, and then you hit what I call “the wall”. It’s a painful place to be.
And if that’s the only way you’ve been trained to sell, then it’s not your fault.
Because all you know, is what you know.
That’s why shifting your mindset to a place of being centered, where you care more about the person you’re helping than the commission you’re after, is the center of the calm.
It’s the center of power and trust.
When your prospect feels genuinely understood by you, and that you truly care about solving their problems, then you are much closer to making a sale.
The more you enter a conversation thinking from your point of view, and talking about what you have to offer, the more sales you lose.
Good news is, if you’re truly an open-minded person, you can make the shift. If you’re not, you’ll have no choice but to continue believing there is only one way of selling.
To your success,
