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by James Daniel
Top-performing salespeople have sales strategies that they leverage to get the results they want. However, even having the best strategies will not help if you do not have the right sales mindset. Your mindset will affect everything, including how you execute your strategies and sell and close deals. Because of how important it is, a sales mindset is one of the key differentiators between top-performing salespersons and others. In this article, we will explore the sales mindset that encompasses how top sales performers think.
The best salespersons see their prospects as equals or peers. This is different from average performers who carry themselves as supplicants asking for something from their prospects. This thinking leads to the prospect thinking they are above the salesperson, leading to the prospect feeling they are in a position of power and losing respect for the salesperson.
If you see yourself as their peer, they will not see you like this and will engage you on an equal footing. This actually gives you a chance of getting what you are saying heard. This is regardless of whether you are selling to a decision-maker or the CEO of a multinational company.
Remember that you are just two people engaging in a conversation where one is trying to convince the other of something. Do not see yourself as either superior or inferior to your prospect because this leads to an imbalance in your relationship.
Every top-performing salesperson recognizes that they provide value to the personal or professional lives of the customers they sell to. If a salesperson feels like they are tricking people into buying what they are selling, they are more likely to sell dirt, which is the wrong mindset.
Instead, top salespeople understand they are bringing real value even when making cold calls. Whether people choose to respond positively or negatively should not be your concern. After all, what you are selling has such tremendous value that they are the ones losing out.
As a salesperson, you should always understand the solution you are selling your prospect. Understanding the product or service in this way will help you close more deals faster leading to overall top performance. This is because the prospects you talk to will hear that you understand what you are talking about as you speak and therefore be more receptive to your messaging, even in cases where you do not ultimately land a sale.
Knowing the solutions you are selling is particularly important in the tech sphere where there are a lot of technicalities and jargon to go through. For example, if you are selling a crypto credit facilities solution based on the Ethereum network, you will have to walk your client through what terms like the Ethereum price index, blockchain, smart contracts, and others mean.
It is not until you understand the underlying ins and outs of what you are selling that you can become a top-performing salesperson.
Humans are very good at detecting desperation. Average and low-performing salespersons treat every sale like a deal they have to close. Prospects can sense this, which leads to the imbalance we have mentioned above.
Top performers, on the other hand, think, “I don’t need every sale”. This is regardless of situations where they feel an urgent need to close a deal. Thinking you do not need a sale puts you in a position of strength instead of weakness and desperation.
Every salesperson is selling a solution to someone with specific challenges or needs. The solution you have at hand will help your prospects deal with their challenges or fulfill their needs. The key is ensuring that your prospect is a good fit for the solution you are selling. If they are a good fit, that means they need the solution you are selling.
This is the thinking that all top-performing salespeople have. Knowing a prospect needs your solution puts you in a position of strength because it reinforces the thinking that you are providing value to your prospects, whether it be in their personal or professional lives.
You will be rejected numerous times as a salesperson; this is just the nature of selling. You have to understand that it is not personal and just business. Understanding this puts you in a position to cope with the rejection much easier.
The result is a salesperson who goes out and tries harder because they know rejection will not faze them. As long as they keep pitching, they know they will land someone who says yes.
These are just some of the things that go through the minds of top-performing salespeople. They use this mindset to approach sales from a position of strength which, in turn, makes them very successful.
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